
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf...L„B.J KiT 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



«%£ja3r«iii2a 



Method in Education 



3 tEtofcbook for &m\)m 



BY 

RURIC N. ROARK, Ph.D. 

DEAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PEDAGOGY, STATE COLLEGE 

OF KENTUCKY 

AUTHOR OF "PSYCHOLOGY IN EDUCATION" 



3*^C 



NEW YORK • : • CINCINNATI ■ : • CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

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LB/m 

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38898 

Copyright, 1899, by 
RURIC N. ROARK. 



ROARK S METH. 
E-P 1 



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PREFACE 

" Psychology in Education," the first book in a series 
of which this is the second, was intended as a founda- 
tion whereon to build a pedagogy. 

" Method in Education " attempts to develop in de- 
tail the applications of psychology in the work of 
teaching. 

RURIC N. ROARK. 

Lexington, Kentucky. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/methodineducatioOOroar 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introduction -. . . 7 

II. Foundations of Method ...... 12 

■III. General Principles of Method . . . . . 22 

IV. The Lesson ........ 40 

V. The Lesson — continued ..... 52 

VI. Drills; Reviews; Examinations .... 80 

VII. Relative Values of School Studies and Exercises . 96 

VIII. Reading " . . 103 

IX. Spelling 124 

X. Object Lessons ....... 135 

XL Object Lessons — continued . . . . .164 

XII. Geography 175 

XIII. History 192 

XIV. Civics . . . . . . . . . 215 

XV. Physiology 234 

XVI. English Grammar ....... 247 

XVII. Number: Arithmetic 260 

XVIII. Language Training 282 

XIX. Language Training — continued . . . 304 

XX. Character Building . . . . . ' . . 322 

5 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

What to teach. — The subject-matter of education 
must be determined largely by what the educated man 
and woman should be and do, as they modify, and are 
rightly modified by, their individual, national, and race 
environment. Formal education (the education of the 
schools) is to make not only men and women of culti- 
vated intelligence and sound character, but men and 
women who shall be equipped in both physical health 
and moral strength to sustain that character against the 
stress and strain of active life, and to apply their intelli- 
gence to the practical bread and butter affairs, as well 
as to the spiritual things, of a complex civilization. The 
debate is still on between those who insist upon a 
utilitarian education and those who plead for the liberal 
or cultural education. Here, as everywhere, the middle 
way is safest, and there should be no debate as to 
whether all classes should have somewhat of culture as 
a result of education, nor as to whether any class could 
long survive to enjoy its culture if it did not get some- 
thing in its schooling whereby to make a living. 

Not determined by sociology alone. — But what should 
be put into courses of study cannot be determined solely 
upon the sociological basis ; counsel must be taken also 
of the inner nature of the one taught. Since the mind 
and body are the instruments with which the man or 

7 



8 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

woman is to make or mar life, what will best and most 
quickly fit them to do their work aright must find place 
in any adequate scheme of education. The content of 
education, then, while indicated mainly by sociology, is 
also partly indicated by psychology and the laws of 
physical growth. 

How to teach. — On the other hand, the question as 
to form of education — the how to teach — must be 
answered in the main by a practical psychology, and 
only slightly and incidentally by sociology. If, as Laurie 
says, " teaching is simply helping the mind to perform 
its function of knowing and growing," then only a care- 
ful, persistent, and sympathetic study of the growing 
mind can show the teacher by what processes it acquires 
knowledge, assimilates it, and expresses the . results 
(concepts and conclusions); and under what stimuli 
these processes are best and most fruitfully set going. 

Depends somewhat on the matter. — The formulation of 
right method is also dependent upon the matter of 
education. There is a how to be discovered in the dif- 
ferent subjects taught, as well as in the mind to be 
trained. Every legitimate subject of study is related 
both to the mind of the learner and to the practical 
requirements of liberal living; hence each subject will 
suggest methods based upon this double relation. Dr. 
Jacobi very neatly sums it up by saying that the teacher 
is " to produce effects upon a living organism, to modify 
forces which begin by being psychological and end by 
being sociological." 

Distinction between management and method. — The 
consideration of what to teach, together with many other 
questions growing out of this one, falls within the sphere 
of educational Management. The question of how to 



INTRODUCTION- 9 

teach belongs to the subject of educational Method. 
Although these two branches of pedagogics touch and 
overlap at several points, as indicated in the preceding 
paragraphs, yet this general distinction may be drawn 
between them — Management deals with the organization 
of the individual school and its courses of study, and 
with the correlation and administration of all educa- 
tional forces; Method deals with the principles upon 
which good teaching must be based, and with the means 
of making each subject in the curriculum produce the 
best educational results. Very much depends upon the 
order and way in which a body of knowledge is built 
into the mind. The same fact produces different results 
at different times, and when presented in different ways. 
It is the province of methodology to determine the best 
order and the best way ; its problem is how to get mind 
out to matter and matter into mind. Discrimination 
should be made between method and methods. 

Method and methods. — As has been said elsewhere, 1 
" By method is to be understood that body of princi- 
ples drawn chiefly from a sound psychology, which 
are applicable to all teaching ; by methods are to be 
understood the special plans and devices to be used in 
teaching a particular branch or subject." The general 
principles of method are obtained by induction and 
inference from a study of individual and race develop- 
ment; methods are applications of these general prin- 
ciples in the teaching of the several branches.. 

Education justifying itself as a science. — Occasionally 
even now one may hear it said that there is no need 
of a study of method in education, that if the teacher 

1 Page 267, Roark's " Psychology in Education." 



10 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

knows thoroughly the subject-matter to be taught he 
knows all that is necessary to equip him for safe teach- 
ing. The science of education is justifying itself so 
admirably, in these latter days when educational matters 
are on everybody's tongue and on the pages of every 
popular periodical, that those who deny teaching a place 
among the liberal professions have a heavy burden of 
proof to carry. The question of method has forced an 
asking in all the higher institutions of learning, and 
there is hardly a college or university in this country 
to-day that does not have its department of pedagogy. 

Adequate knowledge is only one essential. — To know 
well what is to be taught is, of course, one prerequisite 
of teaching, but it is only one of three. The other two 
are a knowledge of mind and its laws of growth, and a 
knowledge of how to make subject-matter stimulate and 
nourish growing mind. An attempt to teach without 
this knowledge of mind would be much like an attempt 
to practice medicine with only a knowledge of the phar- 
macopoeia, and with none of anatomy and physiology. 
Some quite successful "doctoring" used to be done by 
good people who did not know the course of the blood's 
circulation, but in most states the laws now protect a too 
confiding public against pure empiricism in medicine. 
Nor is it enough for the physician to know the drugs 
and their general value, and the anatomy and physiology 
of the human body. He must know also how to use 
drugs, and how to modify the conditions of diet, sleep, 
and work so as to cause the normal functioning of 
every organ. The teacher must know how to cause 
growing mind to react healthily upon the subject-matter. 
But the revolt which was sure to come against the claim 
that full knowledge of subject-matter is the only essen- 



INTRODUCTION- 1 1 

tial, carried some enthusiastic reformers too far the other 
way, and so there was for a while a magnification of 
method — or rather methods — and an unfortunate mini- 
fication of knowledge. Hence it came about that some 
over-methodized folk brought themselves, and the cause 
for which they tried to stand, into an easy disrepute from 
which it has been somewhat difficult fully to recover. 

So, while it is still true that teachers with good method, 
without full knowledge, will sometimes accomplish as 
much as the thorough scholar who lacks method, — and 
may even accomplish more, — yet the best teaching 
is done when sound and broad scholarship is joined to 
sympathetic knowledge of mind processes, and to skill in 
making mind hungry for the best nutriment. In place of 
the former demand, therefore, that the teacher should 
know only the "three R's," there has grown up the 
more rational one that he shall know the " three M's " — 
Matter, Mind, Method, which include the older require- 
ments and much more. 



CHAPTER II 

FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD 

How does the child grow and know ? — The inquiry 
that stands at the very threshold of the subject of 
Method is 5 " How does the child grow and know f " At 
the age of six, when school education usually begins, 
the child has proportionately a larger amount of well- 
assimilated knowledge, and corresponding power of 
physical and mental expression, than he usually gets in 
any later six years of his life ; and the general contour 
of habit and character is already defined. Knowing this, 
the teacher's constant aim should be to find out how the 
child has come thus far so quickly. 

Through the sympathetic study of normal childhood 
the following facts have become more or less clearly evi- 
dent, and may be accepted as the basis of a system of 
educational method : — 

I. The healthy child is full of activity of body and 
mind. 

The muscles are active long before there is evidence 
of consciousness. When consciousness is fully awak- 
ened, then all the powers of the mind are alert and 
responsive to their environment, and every muscle is 
a-quiver with the tendency to function. 

The child cannot keep still ; its physical life is one of 
ceaseless movement, and its mental life is marked by a 
rapid increase of energy — a never ending inflow of sen- 
sations and outflow of impulses. 



FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD 13 

II. The child enjoys this natural and inherent activity. 
Normal activity is pleasant. — It is a fundamental law 

in psychology as in biology, that growth is dependent on 
use ; that is, every faculty, as every organ, must function 
normally in order to grow. Since this law cannot be 
comprehended by the child, there must be some other 
way to bring about use than through the knowledge of 
its necessity; hence, the inherent pleasurableness of 
normal activity. The child, without thinking about it at 
all, is active in body and mind because it is pleasant to 
be active, and unpleasant, even painful, to be inactive. 
He enjoys the functioning of muscles and stomach, of 
lungs and hands, of sight and touch, of memory and 
imagination, of feeling and will. His normal condition 
is one of happy intaking of impressions, and of expres- 
sion in movement and speech. 

III. The first important act of consciousness is sensory 
perception. 

The physical senses are the gates through which the 
object-world enters to awaken and stimulate conscious- 
ness, which, until it is thus awakened, exists only as a 
possibility. 

Consciousness first reached only through the senses. — 
So far as can be known, the human being born without 
the physical senses, would, if he could survive at all, live 
merely a vegetal life. In the case of the normal child, 
impressions begin to impinge upon his sense organs at 
birth. After, a while — almost at once — impressions 
received from without flow along the proper nerve tracts 
to the brain and then become sensations in consciousness 
— sensations of warmth, softness, light, sound. Still 
later — a very little later — consciousness refers these 
sensations to their objective causes, and the objects are 



14 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

perceived. The specific act of objective perception is 
this reference of sensation to its cause, the awareness of 
consciousness of something external to itself. Even this 
act of external perception involves that inner perception 
which is called intuition, a perceptive power the impor- 
tance of whose activity is altogether too much ignored 
by psychologists and pedagogists. 

This, so far as we know, is the real awakening of the 
mind, and the fact that the teacher must not forget is, 
that it is brought about by the reaction of consciousness 
to the stimulus of external objects. 

IV. The first effect of perception is to arouse feelings, 
either agreeable or disagreeable ; and the first conscious 
movements of the child are expressions, in various ways, 
of these feelings. 

By the time the child enters school, other mental activ- 
ities have developed greatly, and in large measure 
modify these first impulsive and purely egoistic feelings. 
But they still constitute a very considerable part of the 
child's life, and must be treated as prominent factors in 
any effective scheme of method or management. 

The feelings are potent stimulators of all the nascent 
powers, and from now on there is rapid growth in the 
child's life. Impressions come crowding upon one an- 
other from the outside world of things, quickening and 
energizing consciousness into the higher forms of percep- 
tion, and the growing mind intuits relation, likeness and 
unlikeness, function, cause and effect. The child learns 
rapidly and readily, and by the time he enters school he 
is far on the road along which it is the business of the 
teacher to direct his further progress. 

V. The general operations of learning are two — 
acquisition and assimilation. 



FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD 15 

Processes of acquisition. — The processes of acquisi- 
tion — of getting knowledge-material — are (1) percep- 
tion, (2) conception, (3) retention. 

Perception, as said before, consists essentially in con- 
sciousness becoming aware of objects external to itself, 
as they affect it through the senses. 

Conception is the process of forming general notions 
from the percepts of individuals, through the natural ten- 
dency of the mind to note likeness. Objects that resemble 
one another are classed together by even the very young 
child, and a name learned for one is applied to all. Thus 
concepts, or general notions, of the things in the child's 
object-world are built up in the acquisitive mind. Ab- 
stract concepts — concepts of qualities, as power, beauty, 
truthfulness — are formed in the same way — from per- 
cepts of these qualities as shown in individuals. 

No real acquisition without retention. — Retention is 
a function of the memory. Neither percept nor con- 
cept can be said to have been really acquired unless it 
is retained. Two facts of prime importance for the 
teacher, in this connection, are (1) the memory is very 
plastic and retentive in childhood ; and (2) the memory 
retains and recalls associated facts and ideas more readily 
than disconnected ones. 

The learner, then, acquires facts — knowledge and 
knowledge-material — through sense contact with things. 
The mind sets to work to understand, to reflect upon 
and assimilate, these facts. Acquisition and assimila- 
tion go on together, or at least so closely does assimila- 
tion, in greater or less degree, follow acquisition that 
the two acts can hardly be distinguished in time after 
the first two or three months of the child's existence. 
Logically, of course, acquisition must precede assimila- 



16 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

tion ; and psychologically there is more acquisition than 
assimilation during the first fourth of life. 

Sense learning. — On the presentation of a new object, 
the learning child, filled with curiosity, — the desire to 
know, — looks at it, then almost immediately reaches to 
get it in his hands, and continues his sensory investiga- 
tion until he is satisfied that he does not know what 
thing it is. Then he seeks from the object itself or 
from some one — parent, teacher, or playmate — an 
answer to the question, "What is it?" by which he 
means, "What is it for?" "What is its use?" "What 
things that I already know is this new thing like?" 
Even before he can talk, his active mind finds answers 
to these unformulated questions by an investigation of 
the object. As he grows older, he may be so unfortu- 
nate as to have these questions answered in words only, 
instead of being helped to closer questioning of objects 
themselves. 

Assimilation is the special work of judgment, because 
to assimilate is, in its first movement, to pe7 r ceive rela- 
tions. No fact is of value out of relation to some other 
fact or facts ; hence the need of correlation in teaching. 

VI. The process of learning is analytico-synthetic. 

An object is first apprehended, somewhat vaguely, as 
a whole ; then its various properties — color, size, shape, 
density — are noted more in detail, and something is 
learned of the relations of its parts to one another. 
Thus what was first observed as a whole is gradually 
reduced to its elements of impression. 

Assimilation is synthetic. — Second, the mind, by this 
analysis, becomes ready for the next operation, that of 
assimilation, and passes immediately to it, synthesizing 
the various elements, reached by analysis, into a better- 



FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD i; 

apprehended whole, and seeking to assimilate the new 
facts further by asking the use of the object — its rela- 
tions to other objects or to self. There is a spontaneous 
effort to relate the new acquisition to facts already 
learned, to build it into or onto the knowledge already 
possessed, and to strengthen this assimilation by dis- 
criminating the new object from familiar objects. This 
act of discrimination, of perceiving differences, is essen- 
tial to clear conception. 

Synthesis is carried into generalization. — Observation 
of the child's mental processes makes it evident that, 
long before he can talk, he generalizes — reaches con- 
clusions, and acts upon them. The synthesis, of which 
the first step is putting the parts of an analyzed whole 
together, and the second is putting the whole into its 
class, goes farther, and from classified and correlated 
individual facts and ideas generalizes — that is, reaches 
a conclusion or principle which at once becomes a test 
for new knowledge or a guide to new actions. 

These processes the same for advanced learners. — Al- 
though we rightly go back to the child to study the 
genesis of mental states and activities, yet, after all that 
is said about " child psychology," the truth remains that 
essential psychoses of the learner are the same, whether 
he be in the kindergarten or the university. The 
" object" of the kindergarten child may be a cylinder; 
the "object" of the pupil in the technological laboratory 
may be a new dynamo ; the " object " of the university 
student may be a bit of old Greek philosophy.. In either 
case, learning goes forward by the same process — 
analysis, synthesis, generalization. If it were not so, it 
would be difficult, if not impossible, to have any gen- 
eral principle of method. As it is, there is continuity 

roark's METH. — 2 



1 8 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and unity ; and the processes of teaching, correspond- 
ing to the processes of learning, are the same in essence 
for all grades. 

VII. Acquisition and assimilation are accompanied 
and followed by expression. 

In the earliest years, expression is mainly the outlet, 
in various ways, of feeling ; later, it becomes the outlet 
of thought and volition also. 

Expression takes many forms, consisting at first 
mainly, if not altogether, of involuntary muscular move- 
ments and inarticulate cries ; it passes through coordi- 
nated and voluntary muscular activities, the beginnings 
of speech, the first efforts at manners and conduct, on 
into written language, and finally into the highest forms 
of manual skill, literature and the arts, and the altru- 
istic life. 

Expression has three forms. — The child's activities 
find expression in three general ways : in physical 
bearing and action, in language and representative arts, 
— such as drawing, modeling in sand and clay, whit- 
tling, — and in conduct and behavior. These forms of 
expression are more or less closely interrelated, and each 
one may serve as an outlet for the activities that ordi- 
narily flow through the other two. Physical expression 
is not only a sign and test of health, natural or attained, 
but is moreover a test of intellectual alertness, the state 
of the feelings and volition. Intellectual and emotional 
expression are much modified by the physical condition 
and the functional health of physical organs ; and moral 
expression varies with health and the intellectual and 
emotional activities. 

VIII. All activity is in direct proportion to interest. 
Any force, mental as well as physical, works best 



FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD 19 

along lines of least resistance. In the case of human 
activity, in child or adult, the lines of least resistance 
are marked by interests. 

There is nothing in the objective world around him 
in which the growing child does not take an interest. 
Everything touches him, and he responds promptly to 
the stimulus. 

Interests are universal. — Nor is interest any less 
when the mind begins to peep into the world of abstract 
ideas. The six-year-old wants to know the "why" and 
"how" of everything; he is a theologian, alternately 
reverent and skeptical, asking questions that are as old 
as man ; he is a psychologist, searching into the causes 
of the feelings and beliefs of those about him ; he is a 
sociologist, wanting to know the sources and limitations 
of authority in those set over him. He has the same 
kind of interests that have caused the formulation of all 
the sciences and all the philosophies. 

Interests are evanescent. — But although the child's 
interests are intense, they are apt to be evanescent and 
shifting, — too easily satisfied or too easily discouraged. 
As he grows older, some interests, on account of environ- 
ment or natural aptitudes, become atrophied, and the 
teacher finds them in that condition when the child 
first comes to him. One problem the teacher has con- 
stantly set for his solution is how to revivify these in- 
terests, and how to direct and satisfy those that are 
actively alive. 

IX. The activities of childhood are largely imitative. 

The early conscious and semiconscious expressions of 
the child take the directions indicated by the activities 
of those with whom he is in daily association. He 
learns his speech, his manners, his modes of thought, 



20 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

by imitating the older children and the adults around 
him. At the same time, what he does soon comes to be 
marked by individual traits peculiar to himself. There 
is original variation in his language, manners, and ways 
of thinking and doing. In most cases these are only 
variations, however, and throughout his life he retains 
the impress made by imitation of what he saw and 
heard in early childhood. 

X. The tendency of any organ or facility is to form 
habits by repetition. 

There is an inherent tendency to repeat, uncon- 
sciously or sub-consciously, movements that at first are 
merely reflex. After a little, the muscle that has con- 
tracted in a certain way several times, finds it easier to 
contract in that way than in any other ; and so, in 
accordance with the law of least resistance, muscular 
habits are formed. 

As the child grows, certain modes of observing, of 
thinking, of doing, are repeated more than others, — ■ 
on account, perhaps, of some hereditary tendency or 
peculiarity of environment, — and habits of thought 
and conduct are formed. 

Repetition results in habits, and upon habits depend 
physical dexterity, quickness and accuracy of thought, 
and the worth and permanency of moral character. 



So much having been discovered (it has been known 
for a long time), the teacher's problem may be stated 
thus : How shall this growing self-activity be kept 
pleasantly and profitably engaged ; how shall it be en- 
ergized and directed so that it may busy itself to find 
what things in life are worth while, and may concern 



FOUNDATION'S OF METHOD 21 

itself with these and with no others ; and how best shall 
there be imitated or continued, in the formal education 
of the school, the natural processes by which the child 
of six obtained its sum of knowledge and skill, and pro- 
jected its lines of habit and character? 



CHAPTER III 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 

From the foregoing salient facts of growth a few- 
principles of education may be deduced, if only in a 
tentative way and as forming a plan by which some- 
thing better may be worked to. 

I. The processes of teaching sliould conform to the 
order and laws of individual growth. 

In this principle the whole of method is summed up. 

The principles and laws of a science can be formu- 
lated only after patient study of the facts with which 
the science is concerned ; and it must be assumed that 
the facts are true and rest upon fixed laws. So educa- 
tion as a science must be formulated upon phenomena 
and their causes and relations. 

The science of education rests upon natural phenomena. 
— The earliest lesson the educator must learn is that the 
mind exhibits phenomena as uniform, governed by laws 
as fixed as any others in nature. Scarcely a beginning 
has been made of observing these phenomena and 
formulating their laws; and teaching has gone too much 
on the idea that the phenomena and the laws are both 
wrong and must be changed. 

But most educationists now are convinced that the 
mind is a normal growth, and that the work of teaching 
must, to be effective, move along lines indicated by the 
mind's own natural development. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 23 

School curricula and mental operations. — Consequently, 
school curricula should be so planned that during child- 
hood and early youth the emphasis shall be put upon 
acquisitional studies and exercises ; in the middle years 
of school life, upon assimilational work ; and in the last 
two years of college and in the university, upon expres- 
sion through some form of specialized skill. But in 
each period and in each study or exercise, of course, 
attention will be paid to all three operations of the 
mind. 

II. All the powers of the body and all the faculties of 
the mind must be developed, and trai?ied to proper func- 
tioning. 

This is only a little closer statement of the first 
principle ; for if we develop and train according to the 
order and laws of growth, we must omit no physical or 
mental faculty, as each has its own order and law of 
activity ; and to fall short of the education called for 
by these is to fall short of the well-rounded fullness of 
manhood and womanhood. 

APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

A school without necessary appliances for physical 
education will some day be looked upon as one is 
now which has no apparatus for aiding in intellectual 
education. It is a trite saying that the mind must have 
a sound body to be sound in. The old idea of the 
scholar's brow being sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 
thought has no place in modern conceptions of the 
mutual relations of body and mind. 

A sound physical basis is necessary. — To meet the 
heavy demands of life as it must be lived to-day there 



24 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

should be a strong and resilient physical basis, — well- 
toned muscles, thorough digestion and assimilation, 
capacious lungs, all contributing to the efficiency of a 
healthy brain. These are commonplaces of educational 
theory, but the theory has hardly begun to be put into 
practice. In only a few of the largest cities is there 
medical inspection of pupils, and such inspection does 
not, as yet, often go beyond the determination of the 
affections of the eye and ear, and the detection of con- 
tagious diseases. 

In every university and college, and in every system 
of schools in the large cities, there should be — will be, 
some early day — provisions made for the regular test- 
ing, not only of the eyes and ears, but of digestion, 
heart, lungs, and muscles. Such testing will be pre- 
liminary to the prescription of courses in physical 
training and in hygienic living, just as an entrance test 
in intellectual attainments and power is preliminary to 
the assignment of a pupil to a suitable grade or group 
in which he may do profitable mental work. 

Courses in physical training and hygiene. — Before this 
idea of adequate physical education can be effectively 
carried out, some matters of educational management 
must be settled. No difficulty — except indifference 
and conservatism — seems to stand in the way in the 
case of the well-to-do higher institutions, public and 
private. But in the country, where the greatest 
numbers are taught, and where, therefore, the teaching 
should be as good as the best, there are grave difficulties 
in the way of adequate inspection of the physical con- 
ditions of the pupils, and of affording them profes- 
sionally directed development and training. 

Perhaps that which will do most to remove these 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 25 

difficulties is the spread of the plan now in use in parts 
of a few states, of centralizing educational appliances 
and forces, and conveying pupils to a well-equipped, 
well-officered central school. Meanwhile the conscien- 
tious country teacher can do much to improve the 
physical condition and direct the physical training of 
his pupils. 

Physical education in country schools. — Every teacher 
should have some practical knowledge of physiology 
and hygiene, and thus be able to detect abnormal con- 
ditions in his pupils, and to do much toward correcting 
such conditions by plain, specific lessons on bathing, 
eating, sleeping, and exercising. And there should be 
the same intelligent and sympathetic supervision and 
direction of the play activities of the pupils as of their 
studies. The teacher should be quick to plan new 
games and variations of familiar ones, so as to secure the 
interested participation of all pupils. The sports should 
be classified — in the teacher's mind, at least — accord- 
ing to the needs of different pupils, and should be so 
directed as to bring into spontaneous and natural 
activity the muscles or other organs that most need 
development, in individual cases. 

Other aims of physical education besides attainment 
of health. — But the attainment and preservation of 
health are not the only aims of physical education. 
The body, as the temple of the soul, as the mind's 
instrument, should be made, not only vigorously healthy, 
but also beautiful and graceful. Only a slight study of 
biology and physiology is necessary to make plain 
somewhat of the great value, to the race, of both grace 
and beauty. 

Manual training. — Another phase of education is 



26 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

manual or mamimental training, in which the relation 
of physical and mental powers is most intimate. Both 
parts of the " muscle-nerve machine " are taught to 
work together harmoniously ; muscle learns to obey 
nerve, and mind finds the easiest and most economical 
motor outlet. At first, both muscle and mind work 
naturally in the large. Movement and thought are 
inexact and approximate. If the teacher heeds this 
fact, the young child will be occupied with the large 
free movements that are natural, instead of being com- 
pelled to do the braiding, pricking, and sewing of the 
modern kindergarten, which require close and delicate 
adjustment of eye, arm, and hand. 

Motor training. — Another most decided advantage of 
the motor training given in manumental exercises is that 
it reacts very beneficially upon the mind. Every group 
of motor activities has its " brain center," and when 
motor activities are called into play these brain centers 
are correspondingly developed and partial atrophy, 
which would otherwise result, is prevented. 

The principles that should guide in the several forms 
of physical education may be summarized as follows : — 

(i) Play should be planned to develop and train all 
parts of the body, and especially those that are some- 
what defective. 

(2) To secure the best results, participation in play 
should be spontaneous and interested. 

(3) Games should be planned that will require, not 
strength alone, but skill also, — quickness of eye and 
muscle, readiness and accuracy of judgment and memory. 

(4) Grace, beauty, and deftness, as well as health and 
strength, should be objects sought for in physical 
education. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 27 

(5) Whenever possible, physical education should be 
under competent professional direction, and should 
be provided for in prescribed courses. 



APPLICATIONS TO MENTAL EDUCATION 

Strengthening one faculty strengthens all: — All the 
faculties of the mind are inherently active and inher- 
ently useful, and their normal exercise always gives 
pleasure. This would be enough to justify princi- 
ple II. ; but another reason, for using it is found in the 
fact that, since the mind is a unit and the faculties are 
simply phases or manifestations of its activity, whatever 
strengthens one faculty indirectly strengthens all the 
others. 

The verbal memory seems to be an exception to this 
statement, however, for it may be abnormally cultivated 
without involving, to any profitable extent, the other 
faculties. 

But only things that are rightly perceived and rightly 
understood can be rightly remembered. Hence, what- 
ever develops the acquisitive and assimilative powers 
will also strengthen memory; and, conversely, rightly 
strengthening memory necessitates the developing and 
training of the other powers. 

Mere memorizing a vicious habit. — The proper appli- 
cation of this principle (II.) will cure the common and 
vicious habit of the lazy teacher and the lazy pupil — 
the habit of making a memorizing of words and forms 
take the place of observation and assimilation. For, in 
spite of a general recognition of the validity of the prin- 
ciple, it is by no means generally practiced. Too much 
stress is still put upon mere memory work, while other 



28 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

mind powers, neglected more or less, become proportion- 
ately atrophied, losing ability to function readily and 
reliably. 

Material for developing the intellect and for quicken- 
ing all the feelings can be found in every subject, 
almost in every lesson, — food for the intellect, stimulus 
for the feelings, and so motive for the will. A rule of 
practice growing out of this principle, and out of the fact 
that the faculties are naturally self-active, is — Do nothing 
for the pupil that he can economically do for himself . The 
pupil cannot economically surround himself with the 
appliances of education, nor can he, without these, give 
proper direction and suitable incentive to his activities. 
The appliances must be furnished by the community ; 
the direction and stimulus by the skillful teacher. The 
duties of community and teacher go no farther, unless 
in exceptional cases. But it takes courage and energy 
for the teacher to follow this rule in his daily work. It 
is so much easier to solve a problem, or formulate a 
rule or a definition, or make a generalization for the 
pupils, than to cultivate in them the interest and the 
power to do these things for themselves. 

It must be constantly kept in mind that the child as 
naturally loves the exercise of the mind as he does the 
exercise of the body ; when properly taught he wants 
to do his work himself. 

III. The first presentations of a new subject should, 
whenever possible, be made with objects ; a7td all teach- 
ing should be largely objective. 

This follows from the fact that all acquisition is 
effected, at first, through the senses. Ready and accu- 
rate observation — the function of all the senses — is very 
marked in children, and just in proportion as this power 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 29 

of ready acquisition is cultivated will the adult mind be 
enriched, and ready at all times to add, from any source, 
to its store of facts. It is while the brain is plastic, the 
sense organs responsive to environment, and the memory 
tenacious of impressions, that the learner should be 
brought into contact with as much of the objective world 
as possible. From such early training two advantages 
accrue — the mind is stored with images, auditory, tac- 
tile, visual, etc. ; and the brain being made to function 
in all its centers, no part becomes atrophied as the child 
grows older. One value of the first becomes apparent 
when it is remembered that all primary thinking is done 
in images, that all thinking is based directly or indirectly 
on images. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, all 
express images in the mind of one and call up images in 
the mind of another. This is true to a very large extent 
even in the use of abstract terms. 

The greatest painters, sculptors, essayists, poets, have 
been those who received and retained the greatest 
number and variety of sense impressions in their child- 
hood and early youth. 

This principle applies in the teaching of any grade. — 
We have grown accustomed to think of "object-teach- 
ing " as something that belongs only in the kindergarten 
and the primary grades. But it is the method in use in 
every laboratory, from the high school to the university, 
and should be used in all grades and in all subjects. The 
principle, if valid at all, is valid in all teaching. 

Because all information — whether concrete or ab- 
stract — comes, directly or indirectly, by way of the 
senses, " nature-study " in the widest and most compre- 
hensive sense should have a place in all schools. 

The concrete should come first. — Teachers too often, 



3o METHOD IN EDUCATION 

unfortunately, reverse the principle in their use of 
objects, and present a new subject abstractly, afterward 
introducing the object-work. For example, a half-term 
will be spent upon " book lessons " in botany or geology 
or physics before the student is given the plants and 
rocks and apparatus to handle. Pupils have been 
known to study through mensuration in two or more 
books without ever having seen a cube, a cylinder, or a 
cone, in the class room ; and others are rushed through 
physiology without knowing the difference, at sight, 
between a ligament and an articulation. 

Some subjects, of course, admit of object-teaching 
much more readily than others ; but objects may be used 
in one way or another, to good effect, with beginners in 
every subject, and objective teaching can be used even 
when objects are not employed. 

Object-teaching and objective teaching discriminated. 
— Object-teaching is teaching with objects or pictures ; 
objective teaching is making a subject concrete, by illus- 
trating it from the pupils' everyday experiences — is 
objectifying it, instead of giving it an abstract presen- 
tation. 

IV. TeacJiing should proceed first by analysis, then by 
synthesis. 

The validity of this principle rests upon the essential 
processes in the act of learning. These processes are 
acquisition and assimilation ; acquisition is analytic and 
assimilation is synthetic, the whole act being analytico- 
synthetic. 

If the child, in teaching himself, makes a full (sensory) 
examination of a new thing, passing — as he does — 
from a general perception of the whole to a more or less 
detailed perception of qualities and parts, then surely 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 31 

that is the manner in which the teacher should present 
new knowledge-material. Whether the object is a ball 
or an air pump, a flower or an epoch in Roman history, 
the first presentation of it should be as a whole ; and 
afterward study should be directed to the characteristic 
properties and constituent parts, or subdivisions. 

The rule may have exceptions. — Occasionally, de- 
parture may profitably be made from this order of pro- 
cedure, as when the teacher draws a picture slowly on 
the blackboard, calling attention to the parts as they 
develop under the chalk; or when some apparatus is 
set up, piece by piece, in view of a class. But this is 
done — with new objects — only to secure variety, or to 
arouse curiosity as to "what it is going to look like," 
and the completed drawing or apparatus is sure to be 
analyzed into its parts again. 

The wholes must be within the learner's comprehen- 
sion. — But that which tests a teacher's judgment in 
using this principle, is the selection of lesson-wholes. 
By an adult or an advanced pupil the earth may be 
readily grasped as a concept-whole ; but that portion of 
its surface contained in the school yard, or in the garden, 
or a bend of the lane, may be as large a lesson-whole as 
it is wise to present to the beginner in geography. 

Synthesis should follow analysis. — The natural move- 
ment of the learner's mind is toward a putting together 
again of the parts into which any whole has been ana- 
lyzed. Hence the teacher should follow the analytical 
presentation with a synthetic one, having the pupils put 
together, either in object or in thought, the parts into 
which any whole has been separated. In some cases 
this can be done in a moment and immediately follow- 
ing the analysis ; in other cases the synthesis should 



32 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

constitute a more or less extended review of the lesson- 
whole. 

For instance, after a bit of earth-surface has been 
analyzed in a geography lesson, the pupils may synthe- 
size it in miniature in the sand pile or on the molding- 
board. In physiology, after the whole body has been 
studied by successive analysis into systems, organs, 
tissues, cells, a review will be most profitable in which 
the class, in successive lessons, synthesize cells into 
tissues, tissues into organs, organs into systems — all 
interconnected and correlated on the basis of function. 

Synthesis has a wider application. — But the term 
" synthesis" may be given a wider application. Con- 
cept-making is a synthesis ; marks or attributes of a 
single object or of several objects of the same kind are 
put together to represent a whole class. So, also, when 
a new object or a new idea is put in the class where it 
belongs, the act is a synthetic one. This classifying is 
essentially assimilative. 

V. Teaching should proceed first inductively ', then de- 
ductively. 

This principle illustrated in the development of the 
race and of the individual. — This principle comes 
almost axiomatically from the same facts that underlie 
III. and IV. Induction means in teaching, and will do 
for teaching, just what it means and has done in scien- 
tific investigation. Just as in the growth of the race 
the discovery and verification of general laws have fol- 
lowed the observation of many particular facts, so the 
individual, repeating the development of the race in his 
own, exercises the power of judgment in its natural 
order of perceiving the relations of objects and facts 
observed, and generalizing conclusions therefrom. And 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 33 

in this case again, as in every other, the natural move- 
ments of the mind indicate the road the teacher 
is to travel. The natural movement of mind is from 
particulars to the general; but the process becomes 
more frequent, more certain, and more fruitful, if it is 
performed consciously. Method in teaching has been 
summed up as causing the learner to pass consciously 
from single percepts to concepts, from concepts to 
judgments. 

The principle applicable in all branches. — Every 
branch of study may be taught, in whole or in part, in 
accordance with this principle. 

In arithmetic pupils should be brought to understand 
processes, and from these to generalize a rule for them- 
selves. This is, plainly, contrary to a practice not yet 
wholly obsolete, of having the pupils memorize a rule 
before undertaking to solve problems. In grammar, 
pupils should be trained to generalize rules of syntax 
out of the various constructions of words as used in 
good sentences. 

In the higher branches, the principle of inductive 
teaching has even greater validity, especially in the 
observational and experimental sciences. It is now 
very generally applied also in teaching history, sociology, 
and the many subjects growing out of these. 

Deductive teaching has its place. — But in much the 
same way as synthesis should follow analysis, should 
deduction follow induction, both because it is a test of 
the accuracy of the observations upon which the induc- 
tion rests, and the judgments by which it was reached, 
and because it is the means of applying practically the 
generalized knowledge obtained by induction. 

After a conclusion, a rule, or a definition has been 
roark's meth. — 3 



34 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

established by inductive processes, the pupil should be 
drilled in making correct applications of it to other 
particular cases. 

To advanced students (the term " advanced " is used 
only in a relative sense) who have already been pretty 
well disciplined in inductive methods of study, a subject 
may sometimes be advantageously presented first deduc- 
tively. To those who have accumulated enough expe- 
riences wherewith to interpret them, conclusions, rules, 
definitions may be presented ready made, and used as 
the starting-point of fresh investigations, or worked back 
from to the particular cases that warrant them. The 
principle, " From facts to definitions and rules," simply 
means that rules and definitions shall be brief, compact 
statements of facts and relations already perceived — a 
sort of crystallization out of the " mother liquor " of 
thought and experiences. But even with advanced 
students too frequent use of deductive method may 
easily and quickly become injurious. 

VI. The work and contents of the learner's mind must 
be brought to adequate expression. 

This principle rests firmly on the fact, sometimes ap- 
parently forgotten, that the final movement or operation 
of the mind is expression. It has been said with great 
truth that the root-weakness of teaching as usually done 
is giving constant impression without calling forth cor- 
responding expression. In spite of the discovery of true 
fundamental principles centuries ago, the stress has been 
laid, in teaching, upon acquisitio?i. This is largely true 
yet, because it is easier to instruct than to develop and 
train, and because so many teachers have neither knowl- 
edge nor skill wherewith to follow the better way, although 
they know there is one. The teacher who gives right 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 35 

instruction, and so stimulates the growing mind that it 
readily assimilates knowledge-material, but who makes 
no special effort to secure adequate expression of knowl- 
edge and thought, falls as far short of his duty as the 
trainer of an athletic team, who would see that his men 
had food proper in quality and quantity, and that they 
observed the hygiene of digestion, but who would require 
of them no definite, carefully directed exercise. In in- 
tellectual training, as in physical, the use of knowledge, 
power, and skill in action, in doing something, is the 
real end and aim of all the previous operations that lead 
up to it. The principle should govern the teacher's daily 
practice, also, because expression is the only test of teach- 
ing, and is the only means by which teaching can be 
made valuable to the individual himself or to the com- 
munity. 

Expression the test of teaching. — Thought and feel- 
ing and purpose find expression in action, in private 
character, in civic conduct, in language, and in art. If 
teaching does not result in clear and correct language, 
sterling character, rectitude of action, and genuine patri- 
otism, then it has failed wholly. And when its failure 
is not utter, it fails in proportion as its results fall 
short when measured by these several tests. 

And these standards of the teacher's success should 
be applied daily in the school life — on the playground 
and in the class room — as well as in the broader life of 
the mart and the forum. If the boy or girl does not do 
independent thinking and use good language to express 
it, is not courteous, truthful, and honest, and is not inter- 
ested in the welfare of the community, then the blame 
must be laid on both the content and form of popular 
education, and the teacher should be held not wholly, 



36 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

perhaps, but largely responsible. By the fruit we know 
not only the tree, but also him who has digged about it. 

It is only through expression that the condition and 
growth of the individual can be understood and tested ; 
only through expression that physical strength and 
health, intellectual capacity, and ethical character can 
take effect upon others. 

VII. Teaching should constantly show some use of the 
thing taught. 

One of the most marked and persistent movements 
of the mind is toward the discovery of function, or the 
use of things. "What's it for? " is an invariable ques- 
tion of child or adult when examining a new thing, 
whether the new thing be a toy or a system of political 
economy. 

As soon as a boy learns the first part of the multipli- 
cation table, for example, he should be given work in 
which he can use it as an instrument, and which will 
enable him to see that multiplication has uses outside 
the schoolroom. So, even to children, the practical 
value of history, civics, and geography can be illustrated 
by applying the lessons learned in these branches to the 
actual conditions of the social environment. 

Some values are higher than the so-called " practical." 
— But the word " use " is not intended to mean only 
what is usually understood by " practical value." 

Many subjects of study that have a legitimate place 
in any good curriculum have values that cannot be 
measured by yardsticks or counted in dollars. The 
high and true values of such branches need to be shown 
in modern education more than ever before, and to this 
end there are needed teachers who know and feel and 
live these values. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 37 

Surely we can get the utilitarian and industrial good 
out of the new education without letting go the spiritual 
and ethical of either the old or new. 

VIII. All teaching should keep in contact with the 
learner's interests. 

This does not mean that teaching shall merely follow 
the lead of the learner's interests. Some critics of the 
doctrine of interest have created this fallacy to lend 
point to their objections. 

Two ways of applying the doctrine of interest. — But 
the doctrine of interest may be applied in practice in 
two ways, viz.: (1) Teaching should follow the child's 
normal and healthy interests as far as they go, and (2) 
should then create, intensify, and direct new ones. It 
will bear much repeating that the chief problem of the 
teacher is to keep alive the multiform interests of child- 
hood, and revive any that may have become atrophied. 

It is not too much to say that no work should be con- 
tinuously demanded of the pupil, in which he feels no 
interest — provided it be understood that the result of 
good teaching is always to create interest and make it 
effective as a motive for work. All education should be 
liberal, — that is, free, — free because of the enlisted 
interest of the learner, free because he is through inter- 
est liberated from any thraldom of drudgery. 

Drudgery is beneficial. — The doctrine of interest does 
not for a moment preclude the idea that drudgery is 
necessary and healthful ; that work that is in itself hard 
and distasteful is a splendid discipline. It should in 
every case be interpreted to mean in its application, that 
the drudgery must be done, the hard and distasteful 
work gone through thoroughly, because of an abiding 
interest in something to which they lead. 



38 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

It is a sort of crime to compel children to do distaste- 
ful things without so managing that they shall see the 
desirable end to be gained, and it is also the poorest ped- 
agogical policy — it is like running a fine machine with- 
out any lubrication and with brakes on. 

Hard work is not in itself unpleasant. — A party of 
boys will toil and sweat in lugging heavy logs to a 
pond to make a raft. This does not suggest that study 
shall be turned into play ; but that if teaching can 
succeed in touching those boys' interests they will toil 
and sweat with raft-building ardor over any lesson that 
may be set. 

Interest the summation of feeling. — Interest is the 
summation of feeling, since in it all emotions, all affec- 
tions, all desires, either directly or indirectly, converge. 
Feelings are either pleasant or unpleasant ; and we are 
interested in attaining that which excites pleasure and 
in avoiding that which causes pain. 

As said in Chapter II., the first effect of sense per- 
ception is the excitation of feelings ; and the first and 
strongest conscious movements are expressions of feel- 
ing. These facts are guideposts in teaching. 

IX. All modes of formal education should afford the 
learner only the best models. 

This rests on IX. in the previous chapter, and requires 
no further elucidation. When we remember the imita- 
tiveness of the young, it becomes axiomatic that in 
language, taste, character, conduct, habits, the teacher 
should be a model to his pupils. 

X. There should be frequent repetition of principles, 
processes, and forms of expression. 

This is a pedagogical commonplace, but the spirit of 
it is so often killed in the carrying out of its letter that 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD 39 

it is worth while to repeat it. It is one of the most im- 
portant principles by which the teacher may direct his 
work, and rests upon the soundest psychology. 

Psychologic effect of repetition. — Every time an im- 
pulse travels inward from a sense organ that is respond- 
ing to some stimulus, it is easier both for that sense 
organ to respond again to the same stimulus, for the 
afferent nerve to carry the impulse, and for the impulse 
to complete itself in perception and in apperception. 

Every time an outgoing movement of desire, or 
thought, or will flows down a motor nerve and takes 
effect in action or inhibition of action, it is easier for the 
action or the inhibition to be produced by the downflow 
of a similar impulse sent along the same nerve track. 
Every time an idea quickens feeling, or awakens mem- 
ory, lights imagination, or makes will kinetic, it becomes 
easier for that idea to produce the same results again. 
Hence the necessity for repetition and re-repetition. 
Thus habits are formed, and habits make character — 
are character. 

But the repeating should be so brought about by the 
teacher as to avoid " grind " or mere treadmilling. A 
discussion of methods of applying this principle will be 
found under " Reviewing." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LESSON 

The lesson the vital point. — The lesson, in its assign- 
ment, preparation, and recitation, is the point of vital 
contact between the teacher and the class, and especially 
between the teacher and the individual pupil. 

Lesson method affected by kind of school organization. 
— It is mainly through the lesson that the transfusion 
of the teacher's personality, the passing over to the 
pupil of the teacher's enthusiasm, his power, his 
knowledge, his skill, his sympathy, and whatever of 
help he can give to growth of intellect and character — 
takes place. Although the teacher may do much to 
direct thought and feeling, through right use of oppor- 
tunities afforded by the daily opening exercises, the 
recreations of the playground, and other points of con- 
tact with the school as a whole, yet it is in the handling 
of the lesson that most can be done to make each pupil 
feel the delight of learning and the value of strength- 
ened character. Consequently, in formulating a method 
system, the science of the lesson should be the first 
object of careful study, after some acquaintance is 
gained with foundation principles. The discussion of 
lesson method is modified from the first by the character 
of school organization under differing conditions. Some 
things are to be said that will apply only to the un- 
graded rural school, others that will apply only to 

40 



THE LESS O IV 4 1 

graded work, and still others that may touch only the 
conditions of the college. 

Elementary education the most important. — It may 

be stated here again, however, that in what follows 
throughout these pages, the work of those who have to 
do with elementary education is most kept in mind. 
This is not because the teachers in the lower grades 
need to study method more than those who work in the 
high school or in the college, but because teachers of 
elementary grades, and especially those who have the 
care of rural schools, are far more numerous than any 
other class, because they work under peculiar disabilities 
of various kinds, and, further, because if elementary 
education proceeds according to right method, second- 
ary and higher education will almost take care of itself 
under any sort of teaching. 

Consideration of the lesson falls under three heads — 
(1) assignment of the lesson ; (2) preparation of the 
lesson ; (3) recitation of the lesson. 

ASSIGNMENT OF THE LESSON 

To assign a lesson is to designate a more or less 
definite portion of subject-matter to be acquired, assimi- 
lated, and put into some form of expression. This is 
true of any sort of " lesson," whether it be a new play- 
ground game, a new movement in physical culture, a 
bit of nature study, or a page of Sophocles. 

The teachers knowledge. — In order to assign a 
lesson well, the teacher must not only know the text- 
book used, but must know the subject, also, — must 
know it so well that he can assign lessons in proper 
sequence and of suitable length, without a text-book. 



42 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Before he is competent to handle lesson-matter in any 
way, he must know somewhat, at least, of the relations 
of subjects to one another, the mutual relations of the 
divisions of a subject, and the relation of the lesson to 
the subject of which it is a part ; and he should further 
know the condition and attitude of the learner's mind 
regarding the lesson-matter about to be assigned. All 
this may be put briefly into the statement that the 
teacher must know both subject-matter and learning 
mind. 

Principles governing Lesson Assignment 

I. Quality of work is more important than quantity. 

The tendency in every grade and in every school, 
except the genuine kindergarten and the genuine uni- 
versity, is to measure progress by the number of 
exercises gone through, or the number of text-book 
pages gone over. Popular sentiment, both of parents 
and of pupils, demands a progress measurable by the 
number of pages or books or subjects ".finished." 

Such a condition of things is due in part to the 
teachers who find it difficult to teach without being in 
servitude to the text-book, or to measure progress other- 
wise than by pages ; in part to boards of education that 
force a multiplicity of text-book subjects into school 
curricula. The latter is an evil of management; the 
former an evil due to lack of adequate preparation by 
teachers for their work. 

The rule should be " short lessons well mastered. > ' — 
The teacher who knows how to assign short lessons, 
and get them thoroughly prepared and recited, will 
carry his pupils in a more rapid and genuine progress 



THE LESSON 43 

than the one who drags his pupils over long stretches 
of poorly prepared matter. 

The measure of length. — And " short" is a relative 
term ; what is short for one class may be long for an- 
other, or what is short in one subject may be long in 
another. The measure of length should be based on 
the average capacity of the class, — the lesson assigned 
may cover one page or twenty, may involve one exercise 
or fifty ; but it should not be quite so difficult that the 
average pupil cannot, by healthy effort, prepare it a 
little within the time allotted for preparation. 

The method good only in good hands. — But this plan 
will prove more unfruitful of real advancement than 
the one criticised above, unless the teacher requires 
thorough preparation, — thorough acquisition and assim- 
ilation, — and unless he is able, during the recitation, to 
illustrate the lesson abundantly, to connect it closely 
with the pupils' other knowledge, and to stimulate them 
to a still closer assimilation. The teacher who can do 
these things will soon find his pupils able to cover actu- 
ally more ground, measured by pages or subjects, than 
they can under the other plan. 

2. The pupil should be enabled to begin the prepara- 
tion of each lesson with forewarned intelligence and 
fresh zest. 

Two of the most important of the teacher's functions 
are to show the pupil how to study effectively, and to 
stimulate him to do so. The recitation affords the best 
opportunity for exercising these functions, but they 
should have a prominent place in the assignment of the 
lesson also. 

" Preliminary drill." — Rarely should a lesson or ex- 
ercise of any kind be assigned without a brief " prelim- 



44 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

inary drill," or preview, in which the salient points are 
indicated, the special difficulties warned against, the rela- 
tive values of the several lesson subdivisions suggested, 
and the connection between the next and the present 
lesson shown. Some point of the new lesson should be 
brought into contact with the interests of the pupils, who 
should be brought to feel, if possible, that the lesson 
they are about to study is worth something to them in 
other ways than merely as a means of securing " marks." 
As a help to this end, the lesson assigned should, when 
possible, show some completeness in itself, should appear 
to the learner as an organic part of the whole subject, or 
of some subdivision of it. Teachers sometimes utterly 
violate this rule by counting the number of days they 
can give to a certain subject, and dividing the whole 
number of pages in the text-book by the number of days, 
to determine the daily stint of the class ! 

The extent and completeness of the preliminary drill 
must be determined by the character of the lesson and 
the needs of the learner. Sometimes, preparatory to 
taking up a new and difficult subject, it may be profita- 
ble to use the whole recitation period in explaining prin- 
ciples and processes, or stating fundamental facts. At 
other times a few words of direction or suggestion will 
suffice. 

In assigning, as in any other work with a class, the 
teacher's manner and personality count for as much as 
sound method, — perhaps it should rather be said, the 
teacher's manner and personality constitute an essential 
of any good method. He must himself be interested in 
the pupils' search for truth, and in the growth that al- 
ways comes from this search. He must show by his 
own devotion that truth is a lovable thing, and inspire 



THE LESSON 45 

his pupils with desire to enter fields new to them. Each 
new lesson should be so assigned and discussed as to 
make the pupils feel that they have had a gate into new 
pleasures set ajar for them. 

Methods of Assigning a Lesson 

A lesson may be assigned either by topics, or by 
pages, or by both combined. If the class is a primary 
one, the teacher may say, "To-morrow we shall talk 
about leaves, and I want each one of you to bring to the 
class at least two different kinds of leaves, plucked fresh 
from the trees." If the class is in the second or third 
year of school, the teacher may say, " For next lesson 
we shall study from page 10 to the bottom of page 
14." If the class is more advanced, he may say, " We are 
ready for the subject of percentage, and I want each of 
you to be able to tell what it is and what its principal 
applications are. You will find these matters treated be- 
tween pages 40 and 48." In still more advanced classes, 
the lesson may be assigned solely by subjects and topics, 
and the pupils required to find all they can upon them, in 
various text-books and reference books. 

Advantages of the topic method. — The advantages of 
a right use of the topic method are marked. In the 
first place, it frees the student and teacher from the 
tyranny of the single text-book, — even when only one 
book is used, — and gives them opportunity to study the 
subject. If there were no other result of its use than 
this freedom from the fetish worship which so often 
marks the attitude of both teacher and pupils toward a 
text-book, it would have ample justification as a peda- 
gogic method. 

Other books than the text-books desirable. — But to get 



46 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

the best results from the topic method there must be 
reference books, and frequent and intelligent use of 
them. For purposes of topic study, any book contain- 
ing information on the subject under investigation is a 
reference book. Other text-books than the ones in use, 
cyclopedias, dictionaries, maps, railway folders, adver- 
tising pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, all are " refer- 
ence books." Of course, no institution from the 
grammar school up, that is worthy of its name, is with- 
out a reference library of some sort ; and even the poor- 
est rural schools can, with a little effort, secure some 
equipment of the kind indicated above, some of the mat- 
ter mentioned being obtainable for the asking. 

Value of reference books. — The full use of the topic 
method drills the pupils in the searching of books for 
knowledge on a specific point, and thus gives them val- 
uable practice in handling a book as a tool. The value 
of this drill is negatively illustrated, sometimes, by the 
inability of pupils, brought to high-school maturity on 
the so-many-pages-a-lesson plan, to find the discussion 
of a given subject in an encyclopedia. It is no very 
uncommon thing to find pupils trying to do high-school 
work who have not even learned the ready and intelli- 
gent use of the index in a text-book. Again, if pupils 
have opportunity to use reference books in preparing 
lessons, they can bring to recitation more facts upon a 
given subject than if they have all gained their knowl- 
edge from the same text ; and this increase in the num- 
ber of facts is usually accompanied, and its value 
enhanced, by differences in the forms in which the facts 
are stated. There is variety, and this gives zest and a 
wider horizon. 

Finally, the use of the topic method solves what is, in 



THE LESSON 



47 



many schools, a serious problem, by doing away with 
the necessity for uniformity in text-books. 

Dangers of topic method. — But it is true of the topic 
method of assigning lessons, as it is of any other useful 
method, that in the hands of a poor teacher it may 
easily become a cause of very sleazy, superficial work. 
It requires clear and close connecting of subjects, and 
making plain the important facts and their relations. 
If used with pupils wholly unaccustomed to it, it con- 
fuses them and leaves them discouraged and helpless. 
To assign a lesson by the topic method to a class of 
crude pupils would be much like taking a city-bred child 
into the heart of a wood, and requiring him to find his 
way out alone. 

Combined method best with intermediate classes. — 
With intermediate classes, or with classes previously 
accustomed to studying only a certain number of 
pages in a text, but now ready to be trained in the 
freer method, it is better to assign a lesson by topics 
in connection with a definite number of pages in the 
text-book, stating the topic, and giving the pages on 
which it is treated. This will be found a convenient 
way of changing the study habits of the pupils 
from routine text-book work to freer investigation of 
subjects. 

Most modern text-books have topical summaries at 
the ends of the chapters, and also good indexes, and 
constant use should be made of these aids, by both 
teacher and pupils. 

PREPARATION OF THE LESSON 

The preparation of the lesson may be viewed from two 
standpoints, — that of the pupil and that of the teacher. 



48 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Preparation by the Pupil 

For the pupil, acquisition and assimilation. — On the 

part of the pupil, preparation is the process of ac- 
quiring and assimilating the portion of subject-mat- 
ter marked off in the assignment of the lesson. Too 
often the student gets no farther than mere acquisition, 
and simply memorizes the lesson. Assimilation is diffi- 
cult for the pupil, and testing assimilation is difficult for 
the teacher ; it is much easier to memorize and to test 
memory. Pupils have been known even to memorize 
verbally the demonstration of a theorem in geometry ! 

One of the first duties of the teacher is to show the 
pupil how to prepare a lesson, — how to direct effort, 
and to economize time ; how to exert thought power, 
and to question himself and his text-book while he is 
studying ; and especially how to enjoy the processes of 
learning facts and understanding them. Under this 
sort of direction the pupil will find that he can econo- 
mize time and effort, can " get the lesson " better and 
quicker, by going over it not more than three times. 

How to study. — The first time, he looks through the 
whole lesson in the light of the preliminary drill his 
teacher has given him ; gains thus a general compre- 
hensive idea of the lesson-whole, in accordance with the 
analytic principle "from the whole to its parts"; re- 
freshes his memory on the last lesson and its connection 
with the present one; sees at what points the lesson 
touches his own experiences ; and notes the parts that 
are likely to require hardest study for their mastery. 

The second time, Yizgets the lesson as he goes, master- 
ing it step by step, putting its facts in the memory, and 
weighing their relations and the reasons for their being 



THE LESSON 



49 



what they are, challenging the book's statements, look- 
ing up other authorities than the text, and forming his 
own opinions. Pupils should be encouraged, at first, 
and later required to go beyond the limit of the text- 
book in their preparation of lessons. 

The third time he glances the lesson over again, just 
before recitation, to revivify and fix the salient points, 
and to make sure he can sustain himself in the coming 
lesson-discussion with the teacher. 

The student who does not feel himself grow, his mind 
glow and sparkle, his desire to know increase, while 
"getting a lesson" in this way, is either suffering from 
poor teaching, or is beyond the reach of good teaching, 
and might about as well go back to the old plan of con- 
ning a lesson over "ten times." 

Of course, the method of study outlined above must 
be grown into ; but from the very first, when the 
beginner can make little or no preparation of lesson 
material, to the highest class, the teacher must have 
such a plan of study as this as the ideal toward which 
to train his pupils. 

Best time for studying. — The best time for preparing 
a lesson, the student soon finds, is, as a rule, just after 
it has been assigned. If the recitation has been an in- 
spiration and a stimulus, and the preliminary drill has 
skillfully given hint of the possibilities of the next lesson, 
the pupil will feel more like studying, and will be in 
better trim for it, just after recitation, than he will when 
the glow of successful and enjoyable effort has faded. 

Preparation by the Teacher 

The teacher's preparation for each recitation should 
be as much more careful than that expected of the 

roark's meth. — 4 



50 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

pupils as the teacher's capacity and responsibility are 
greater than the pupils'. 

In the preparation rightly demanded of the teacher, 
should be included not only the general professional 
training and scholarship which he has already attained, 
but also a special study day by day of each lesson which 
has been assigned to the class. The results of such prep- 
aration are definite and clear-cut work in the recitation, 
a saving of time by the cutting out of irrelevant matter, 
greater freedom and flexibility in handling the lesson, 
and a marked invigoration of the pupils' interest. 
Pupils are always impressed by genuine and exact 
knowledge, and give more ready respect and obedi- 
ence to teachers that have it than to those whose 
knowledge is shallow and inexact. 

Of course, if the teacher is fit, this daily preparation 
will consume but little time, and will be mainly a plan- 
ning of special lesson methods. Yet some of the best 
teaching has been done by teachers who have had to 
work hard and long every night in order to keep ahead 
of their classes the next day. Their own recent and 
lively experience with the difficulties of a subject makes 
them more sympathetic with their pupils, and enables 
them more easily to direct the efforts of others in over- 
coming these difficulties. Also, if the teacher faces his 
class fresh from the search for and discovery of some 
truth, he will be able to put the glow of his own enthu- 
siasm into his pupils with a success and an enjoyment 
of their pleasure which he finds it difficult to attain 
after he has grown overfamiliar with his subjects. 

But even when the teacher's scholarship is wide and 
exact, it will not be amiss for him to refresh his memory 
as to the manner and amount of treatment given any 



THE LESSON 



51 



particular lesson by the text and reference books that 
will be used by his pupils. This is in order that he may 
know what justly to expect of them in recitation, and 
that he may be able to aid them in the orderly arrange- 
ment of the particular facts they have gathered. 

Moreover, the teacher will find, after but a short expe- 
rience, that a knowledge which seemed sufficient for his 
needs as a student is inadequate for the demands of 
thorough teaching — that a reciting knowledge and a 
teaching knowledge of the same subject are quite differ- 
ent in quality. He will be able to find illustrative use for 
every scrap of information he may have about anything. 
From whatever excursion the teacher may make into any 
field of knowledge — and he should make many — let him 
bring back something wherewith to enrich his teaching. 

He will soon feel the need of studying the lesson in 
the light of what he knows of the mental characteristics 
of individual pupils, in order to devise ways of making 
the unclear points of the subject plain to each one. He 
must even study the rhetorical form of his questions — 
how to begin so as to excite and hold attention, how and 
when to lay stress and emphasis, how to make his own 
expression a model for the class. 

Oral work requires most careful preparation. — But it 
is for oral work and the successful conducting of recita- 
tions in the lower grades that the teacher must make 
the most careful preparation, working out each lesson 
plan in closest detail, yet holding each plan subject to easy 
modification in actual execution. The fresh and eager 
interest of children, their incapacity for prolonged atten- 
tion, their searching questions, their instant perception of 
sham interest and sham knowledge in the teacher, all con- 
stitute a test of skill to which few teachers are fully equal. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LESSON {continued) 
RECITATION OF THE LESSON 

On the part of the pupil, the recitation of the lesson 
is a reproduction of facts and the expression of thought 
about them. 

On the part of the teacher, the recitation is a test of 
the pupil's acquisition and assimilation, through expres- 
sion. These are the bare essentials of a recitation ; 
much more is involved. 

Some recitation values. — It is during the recitation 
that the teacher may come into that most intimate and 
vital touch with the pupils — with each individual con- 
sciousness — which gives him opportunity to mold them 
into intellectual and moral form, almost *to re-create them 
in his own image. 

The mind of the pupil may be inert and indifferent, 
even repellent, toward the subject-matter of the lesson; 
the lesson may be a cold, dead thing, and the two, the 
learner and the lesson, may be in contact throughout the 
study and the recitation, without any real union. But 
if the quickening, electric current of the true teacher's 
informed and skillful personality flows through from one 
to the other, they become fused into one — there is a 
true welding. 

It is by his method in the recitation that the teacher 

5 2 



THE LESSON- 53 

must reveal to his pupils the loveliness and desirableness 
of knowledge and wisdom, must whet their curiosity to 
know, and show them how and with what to set to work 
to satisfy it. 

Purposes of the Recitation 

1. The first purpose of a recitation is to find out what 
the pupil knows and how he knows it. 

To discover the what is easier than to discover the 
how. — Too frequently, teachers are content to stop 
with only the first part of this purpose accomplished. 
They conduct the recitation merely as a memory test, 
and the pupil is required to do little more than yield up 
the words he stuffed himself with in preparing the les- 
son. To find out what the pupil knows, while not 
always easy, is at least easier than to test the thorough- 
ness and manner of his knowing. The pupil may have 
come into the kingdom of knowledge by some other 
way than the straight and narrow one of individual 
effort. 

Sometimes, too, the teacher finds that the pupil's 
method of gaining his knowledge and assimilating it 
has originality ; the learner has dared to do some think- 
ing of his own, and has found more rational and less 
devious ways of doing things than those set forth by 
text-book rules. Happy is such a pupil if he has a 
teacher worthy of him, who will not try to force him 
into the devitalizing uniformity of a ready-made process 
or rule. 

Psychological significance of the how. — The how of 
the pupil's knowing has a deeper psychological signifi- 
cance too. One learner may have his knowledge as a 
store of visual images ; another may have his concrete 



54 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

concepts made up of complete percepts — percepts 
formed through all the senses ; while still another 
may have looked beyond sensory images and concepts 
formed from them, to the abstract relations of the ob- 
jects of his knowing. On these points the teacher 
must make most careful study of his pupils, so that he 
may understand the limitations and capacities of each 
one, and so give each one just the help he needs. 

2. Another purpose of the recitation is to find out 
what the pupil does not know and why he does not 
know it. 

Concealment of ignorance. — It might seem at first 
glance as if this purpose would be accomplished in the 
accomplishment of the first, but it is by no means nec- 
essarily true. A good many pupils become peculiarly 
skillful in so throwing the dust of a little knowledge 
into the teacher's eyes as to blind him to their igno- 
rance. Pupils are always ready to tell — as best they 
can, without too much effort — what they know. They 
are almost always equally ready to conceal what they do 
not know. It is just at this point that some quite preva- 
lent recitation methods need thorough reformation. 

So long as a recitation is looked upon by both teacher 
and pupil as an occasion for making the best possible 
show of knowledge, and for getting " good marks," just 
so long will pupils hatch plans for displaying knowledge 
to the best advantage, and for resisting any effort to 
uncover ignorance; so long will a "foolable" teacher 
be considered fair game for all sorts of devices to secure 
the coveted " pass-marks " ; so long will the pass-mark, 
or certificate, or diploma be made the ultimate goal of 
the pupil's study, instead of true learning and intellec- 
tual and moral character. 



THE LESSON 55 

Knowledge helped by a recognition of ignorance. — It 

is a high privilege of the teacher to show by his own 
attainments and character how priceless is true knowl- 
edge, and true growth from assimilation of it, and to 
make it plain to those whom he would teach that a 
clear understanding of the limits of one's knowledge, 
a candid and unshrinking summing up and confession 
of what one does not know, are necessary to progress. 

Marking cultivates dishonesty. — If only the boys 
and girls in the schools, and the students in colleges 
and universities, could be led to see the futility of 
marks that stand for no real attainment, and if they 
and many of their teachers could be brought to a reali- 
zation of the sham of much that is inherent in the 
marking system, the heartiness and genuineness of 
school work in all grades would be wonderfully in- 
creased. And there would soon come that saving re- 
gard for truth and honesty in all their forms, which is 
so sorely needed by the adult citizen in every relation 
of life. 

Teaching skill needed to discover ignorance and its 
cause. — But even when the pupil is willing to reveal 
his ignorance, the teacher still has need to probe skill- 
fully to find the weak places in the learner's knowledge 
of the lesson, and especially to discover the cause of 
weakness. He must find out why the pupil does not 
know and understand, whether it be on account of lazi- 
ness, or inability, or some odd twist of mental vision. 
Often it happens that the teacher can, with a keen and 
suggestive question, cut some Gordian knot of difficulty 
for the pupil, which — owing to their differing relations 
to the lesson — the teacher cannot discover, unless he 
makes a special hunt for the pupil's defects of mastery. 



56 METHOD TN EDUCATION 

Questioning better than telling. — And a question 
which reveals to the pupil's own thought the solution 
of the difficulty he has met, or which stimulates him to 
rind the way through for himself, and throws a flash- 
light into the darkest place, is far more effective 
and requires of the teacher far more alertness and care, 
than any amount of mere telling. This is the value of 
the Socratic form of questioning. A judicious use of it 
will train pupils into a positive dislike of being told any- 
thing that they can be led to find out for themselves. 

3. A third purpose of the recitation, to which the 
attainment of the fundamental aims just described is pre- 
liminary, is the aiding of the pupil to a clear interpreta- 
tion of the lesson in terms of his own previously acquired 
experiences. 

No lesson should be taught unrelated. — The teacher 
must vigilantly guard against presenting each lesson as 
a sort of "cross-section" of a subject. On the con- 
trary, especial care should be taken to make plain the 
relations of the lesson to the subject of which it is a 
part, and to other subjects of which the learner has 
some knowledge and in which he has some interest. 
Especially must the lesson be made to touch the pupil's 
present interests at as many points as possible, and to 
awaken new interests. 

4. A fourth purpose of the recitation is to explain 
difficulties upon which the class has exhausted its efforts. 

Difficulties are to be explained by the teacher only at 
recitation, and then only when he is convinced that a 
majority of the class have put forth their best efforts 
and have failed. And even then it is often better for 
the teacher, instead of giving the necessary explanation 
himself, to call upon some one of the successful minor- 



THE LESSON 57 

ity to explain the difficulties that have withstood the 
resolute attack of the others. The general rule may be 
stated thus : Never explain anything which the major- 
ity of the class have not done their best upon, and which 
some member of the class can explain. 

Under good teaching, a lesson will rarely have to be 
reassigned, and when it is, or when the class is dis- 
missed for not having the lesson properly prepared, the 
disgrace should be keenly felt by every member. 

5. A fifth purpose of the recitation is to train the 
pupils in original expression. 

No exercise complete that does not cultivate all three 
mental operations. — Throughout all his work, the 
teacher has need to remember that the operations of 
the mind are acquisition, assimilation, and expression, 
and that no exercise is complete in which the mind does 
not function in all three. 

Of course, acquisition should receive especial stress 
in some exercises, assimilation in others, and expression 
in yet others. It is usually expression which suffers 
most, for various reasons. In their class-room practice 
teachers are too prone to accept any sort of answer, — 
fragmentary, unsyntactical, unrhetorical, monosyllabic, 
slangy, — if it only shows the pupil to have some ac- 
quaintance with the facts of the lesson, and a little 
understanding of them. 

Recitations should usually be conversational. — Care- 
fully worded, clearly expressed, concise answers, though 
not attainable without gradual and prolonged training, 
should be the ideal toward which the teacher carries 
his class. As often as possible and as nearly as possi- 
ble, the oral recitation in any grade should take the 
form of a conversation between pupils and teacher, in 



58 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

which both strive for fluency and accuracy of language. 
It is not desirable that the teacher should criticise 
every error in expression committed in recitation. To 
do this would be to lose other values of the recitation 
without gaining the one sought. But little by little, — 
by correcting a word here, a phrase there, a wrong 
pronunciation, a slovenly enunciation, and by careful 
correction of all written work, the pupil will be brought 
into habits of both free and proper expression. After 
a while the teacher may refuse to give full credit to any 
answer that has not verbal correctness and fluency as 
well as accurate statement of fact and clearness of 
thought. 

Pupils should answer in their own language. — As an 
essential factor in expression training, answers should, 
as far as possible, be made in the pupil's own language. 
And this is true, no matter how crude such expression 
may at first be. A past generation of teachers — and 
there are a few survivors from it — insisted upon a 
reproduction of the exact language of the text-book, 
saying, by way of finality, that such language could 
hardly be improved upon. Granting this to be true, 
though the statement is open to grave doubt, the fact 
still remains that it is the pupils' language that needs 
improving by use ; and as the language of the text is 
not the pupils' language, their use of it is no test at all 
of their power either of thought or of expression. In 
fact, when a pupil answers in the exact language of 
the book, it may be taken almost as prima facie 
evidence of his ignorance of the matter under dis- 
cussion. The teacher who teaches will rarely, if ever, 
accept an answer framed only in the wording of 
the book ; he will insist upon the learner's thinking 



THE LESSON 59 

for himself and expressing his thought in his own 
language. 

6. The sixth purpose of the recitation, and the 
one which sums up all the others, is the building of 
character. 

Every recitation a means of building character. — Any 
recitation may be made to help in attaining this supreme 
end of the teacher's work. Even physical character can 
be strengthened by insisting on correct positions in sit- 
ting or standing during the recitation. And while it is 
usually and rightly considered to be the main purpose 
of the recitation to form intellectual character, yet there 
are few recitations that do not afford opportunity for 
direct or indirect building of moral character also. 
Every subject taught has some ethical content. 

Biography, history, and literature are conceded to 
afford the best means of moral culture, but the teacher 
who is master of both matter and method can make his 
pupils feel and enjoy the moral power of an algebraic 
formula or an axiom of geometry ; and the natural sci- 
ences, rightly handled, are especially productive of 
ethical influences. 

And aside from whatever there is of moral value in 
the subject-matter, the recitation can be so conducted 
as to inspire in the learners love of truth for truth's sake, 
honesty in the search for it, and readiness to confess 
failure to find it. 

Forms of the Recitation 

A lesson may be recited either orally or in writing. 
The oral recitation may be in the usual form of ques- 
tion and answer, or may consist of a discussion, by the 
pupil, of some topic assigned by the teacher from the 



60 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

lesson-matter. Lecturing by the teacher, though en- 
tirely legitimate under proper conditions and for certain 
purposes, is in no sense a recitation. 

Question and answer plan most effective. — The ques- 
tion and answer plan will usually be found most effec- 
tive, since it is the best, if not the only way of securing 
all the ends of a recitation. It best enables the teacher 
to explore the pupils' knowledge and discover their 
ignorance. It is only by the probe and scalpel of the 
skillful question that the teacher can find and lay bare 
the particular defects of each pupil's mastery of a 
lesson. 

No other form of recitation can have the value of the 
quick, sharp, but sympathetic, encounter of question 
and answer, with teacher and pupil face to face, each 
alert and mutually responsive. The results are a stimu- 
lated and increased activity of all the mind's powers. 
The successfully conducted oral recitation is a good 
illustration of the law of the conservation of energy, for 
it is not possible for the teacher to get vim and quick- 
ness out of a class in recitation unless he has put vim 
and quickness — force — into the class. * 

Topical plan affords better opportunity for expression. 
— On the other hand, the topical form of recitation, in 
which each pupil says what he can in a given time, on 
some topic of the lesson, affords better opportunity for 
expression and for that consecution of thought which 
must precede clear and full expression. When the 
teacher frames questions so as to develop the subject 
of the lesson in the consciousness of the pupils, he is 
really doing some of their work "for them by analyzing 
and synthesizing the lesson-matter, instead of having 
them do so. 



THE LESSON 6 1 

This may help to explain a fact, alluded to before, 
that if the pupil some time comes to teach, he finds his 
reciting knowledge of a subject far short of a teach- 
ing knowledge. As a teacher, he must analyze ; as a 
pupil, his teacher too often analyzed for him. Hence 
the value of the topical recitation, which gives oppor- 
tunity to the pupil to develop his own thought in his 
own way. 

But the pupil's discussion of a topic, even though it 
be pretty full and clear, needs usually to be supple- 
mented by the teacher's questions and those of the 
class. 

Dangers of the topic method. — The chief difficulty 
attaching to the topical recitation is that of securing the 
attention of the whole class to each discussion. Even 
in advanced classes, often, the pupils do not all attend 
to a report which may last only five minutes. 

This difficulty is greatly aggravated by a grave misuse 
of the topical method, of which some good teachers are 
occasionally guilty when a little pressed for time. In 
order to " cover " a certain amount of ground in a specific 
time, a different topic is assigned beforehand to each 
pupil, so that each one prepares on his own topic only, 
and not on the whole lesson. 

Dangers of the lecturing plan. — Lecturing by the 
teacher is apt to be a questionable practice at best, 
since it violates the principle of the pupils' self -activity, 
and makes them more or less passively recipient. It is 
not necessary, except to give information which the 
pupil cannot get for himself ; even then it is best used 
sparingly, and is made most effective by frequent 
reviews. 

Lecturing in the class room is a survival from the 



62 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

times when libraries were few and poor, text-books 
unattainable, and the inductive method of study 
unknown. It is totally out of place now, as a regular 
method of instruction, except in universities, where stu- 
dents are mature enough and skillful enough to profit 
by close attention and the taking of notes. 

Written recitations. — Occasionally a lesson should be 
recited, in whole or in part, in writing, upon blackboards 
or tablets. 

There are several good ends to be gained from a 
written recitation that are not reached by the oral. 
(i) It gives a drill in rapid writing, making the pupils 
use penmanship only as an instrument — something the 
work of the penmanship class does not accomplish. 
(2) Writing a recitation accustoms the pupils to spell 
by eye y and they cannot learn to spell English correctly 
otherwise than by forming correct visual images of 
words. (3) Through a written recitation each pupil 
may be tested upon the whole lesson. (4) Writing the 
recitation affords a training in one of the most valuable 
forms of expression. The pupil learns to think and 
write at the same time, and to express thought in neat 
and correct manuscript. It hardly needs to be said that 
neat, clearly written work, in which the language is an 
adequate expression of the thought, is the ideal the 
teacher must persistently hold before his pupils and 
himself. 

The written recitation, like the oral, may be either 
question and answer or topical. If the first, then the 
teacher should number each question before asking it, 
and the pupils' answers should be numbered to corre- 
spond ; if the latter, the answers will be brief composi- 
tions upon the different topics of the lesson. 



THE LESSON 63 

The Teaching Acts 

The most important fact for the teacher to remember 
— next to the fact that the mind is naturally self-active 
— is that the mind functions in three operations, — 
acquisition, assimilation, expression. The mind must 
acquire knowledge-material, a stock of facts, ideas, 
words ; it must assimilate these into its own thought- 
substance, by the elaborative processes of feeling, 
thinking, imagining, willing; and it must express 
thought and feeling, choice and determination, in lan- 
guage, conduct, and various forms of doing. 

The recitation must arouse these activities. — The 
chief purposes of the recitation are attained when the 
pupil is so aroused by his contact with the teacher in 
class, that his mind will pleasurably function in these 
three ways, in its reaction upon the subject-matter 
presented; and when these operations are rightly 
tested. 

The teaching acts — or " formal steps " — should con- 
form to the order and method of the three mental 
operations, and to the aims of the recitation. This is 
true, whether the teaching is physical, intellectual, or 
moral ; the same principles and laws underlie all kinds 
of teaching in all grades of advancement. 

Teaching defined. — To teach is consciously to instruct, 
to develop, to train, and to test results. 

To instruct is to give to the pupils facts, ideas, words, 
the materials of knowledge. Instruction, in this strict 
sense, is necessary chiefly in primary work; but it is 
best to lead even beginners to get, as far as possible, 
their facts for themselves. 

To develop is to increase and direct the self-activity 



64 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

of the pupil, to vivify all his right interests and awaken 
new ones, thus. making all his powers stronger. 

To train is to cultivate the pupil's skill, his ability to 
express easily and well, and with economy of time and 
energy. 

Each lesson usually affords opportunity for all three 
teaching acts. — All three teaching acts should, as a 
rule, take place in every recitation ; but in some cases 
the necessities of the subject, or of the pupils, may 
require three or even more recitations to complete 
them all. 

Even when the pupil has done well in preparing the 
lesson, in his acquisition of the facts and his under- 
standing of their relations to one another and to other 
facts previously learned, there is need that the teacher 
should add information not found in the lesson (in- 
structing) ; should illuminate it with knowledge already 
gained, and should make sure that the pupil can recog- 
nize familiar facts in new settings, and can fit new facts 
into their proper places among things already acquired 
(developing ; stimulating assimilation). And the proof 
of success or failure on the part of the pupil and teacher 
is the pupil's power or inability to express. 

Teaching acts in terms of learning acts. — Stated ex- 
plicitly in terms of the learning acts, the teaching acts 
are : — 

(i) Causing the formation of clear individual per- 
cepts and concepts; (2) causing the formation from 
these of correct general concepts and conclusions, to- 
gether with a quickening and strengthening of motives ; 
(3) causing an apt and skillful application of the knowl- 
edge and power thus gained to the demands of practical 
life, or to the increase of needful knowledge. 



THE LESSOIV 65 

Rules of the Recitation 

I. The most effective work can be done with a class 
only when each member is attentive to the matter in hand. 

It is only in the focus of consciousness that the 
mind's powers work to true advantage; so this focus 
must be upon the subject-matter of the lesson in order 
to get results that are worth while. Time spent in try- 
ing to teach an inattentive class is time thrown away. 
The sun's rays coming through a bit of windowpane 
will not set tinder on fire ; the same rays, focused 
through a lens, will burn wood. 

The first problem is the problem of attention. — The 
teacher's first practical class problem is the problem of 
attention. Any teacher has the whole attention of his 
pupils during the first two or three minutes the first 
time he stands before them. It is not much too hard a 
saying that it is his own fault if he ever loses it there- 
after. And the secret for every class and for the whole 
school, for the whole term, is the same that works the 
spell for those first two or three minutes — interest. It 
is their interest in the new teacher, in his way of work- 
ing, in his personal manner, in his handling of them, 
that holds their attention upon him in that first contact. 
His privilege it is to fan by every art that spark of curi- 
osity into a consuming flame of desire to possess all 
that he can give them. Interest is the lens that focuses 
consciousness, that converges the mind's activities to the 
burning point. So the problem of attention is. the prob- 
lem of interest. 

Fresh interest in each recitation. — One of the surest 
ways of securing, day after day, that all-desirable fresh 
interest of a class in each lesson exercise is to spend 
roark's meth. — 5 



66 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

time and ingenuity upon devising variations in opening 
and conducting the recitation. That teacher is most 
successful in securing interested attention who — other 
things being equal — has his pupils thinking to them- 
selves, or saying to one another, " I wonder how he will 
get at things this time," feeling sure all the while that 
something good and pleasurable will come to them from 
each exercise. The best work will be done only when 
the teacher comes before each class with a carefully 
thought-out lesson plan, and with a correct standard by 
which to measure the results of the recitation. 

Begin with the unexpected. — Nothing is so tiresome 
as monotony, and when pupils know that each recitation 
will follow the " same old grind," they come dragging 
to class, and are indifferent to all parts of the exercise 
except the "marking." The teacher should make it a 
special point in his class method to begin often with the 
unexpected, even the apparently irrelevant, and by a 
few quick questions lead the pupils to see the relation 
between what he has just presented and the lesson 
before them. He must be ingenious in putting every 
important fact of the lesson in a light in which the 
pupils had not themselves seen it, so that its relations 
and applications not previously discovered by them will 
become clearly evident. 

The air and bearing of the teacher while before his 
pupils should be such as would mark a naturally pleas- 
urable hunt, by teacher and pupils together, for some- 
thing both enjoyable and profitable; and if the teaching 
is right, every pupil will feel a genuine thrill of satisfac- 
tion when a new truth, or some new value of a familiar 
one, is discovered. But a class will not respond in this 
way to any exhibition of sham interest by the teacher ; 



THE LESSOIV 67 

he must feel a real and living enthusiasm in his work as 
a revealer of truth and beauty to his pupils, and must 
be genuinely expectant that they will feel a keen 
pleasure in the revelation. 

The teacher may appear to be taught. — The effect is 
much enhanced if the teacher will sometimes quietly 
and naturally put himself in the attitude of being 
instructed by his class, and insist that some point in the 
lesson be made clear to him. 

This is a frequent device of the skillful teacher, and, 
rightly used, it never fails to stimulate the pupils to 
clearer thought and more accurate expression; they 
feel the interest that quickens every one who has some- 
thing worth telling to some one who wants to know it. 
This playing the role of learner is different from So- 
cratic questioning. In the former, the pupil forgets for 
the time that the teacher knows more than himself ; in 
the latter, the pupil is all the time aware that he is being 
led to see something by one who sees it better than he 
does. 

It may be found profitable occasionally to allow the 
pupils to ask questions of the class. Sometimes the 
teacher may announce himself as a target at which they 
may fire any question concerning the lesson. One 
good result of this latter device is to show the pupils 
that it is not so easy after all "just to sit up and ask 
questions." Another and more valuable one is that it 
enables the teacher to get a new insight into the pupils' 
ideas of the lesson. 

II. The teacher should, as far as possible, dispense 
with both text-book and notes while conducting a recita- 
tion. 

Nothing should come between the teacher and his 



68 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

pupils. Having a text-book in hand and looking into 
it to see what questions to ask and to determine the cor- 
rectness of the pupils' answers, is one of the surest means 
of destroying that magnetism which should be a charac- 
teristic of the contact of pupils and teacher during the 
recitation. Such use of the text-book distracts the 
attention of teacher and class from the best purposes of 
the recitation, and sets up a false standard of the worth 
of the pupils' answers — the standard of mere verbal 
accuracy in the repetition of the author's language. 

The teacher must know the subject. — In order to dis- 
pense with the text-book the teacher must know the 
subject, and in addition to his general knowledge of it he 
must know it as the text-book presents it. He must 
feel so thoroughly at home in the subject that he will be 
free to give his alertest attention wholly to the pupils 
themselves, remembering always that it is they that are 
taught, not the subject. 

The teacher must make his own questions. — The 
teacher must make his own questions, and not use ready- 
made ones of the book. A text-book that has such 
questions is an insult to the intelligence* and a slur upon 
the competency of teachers. It is pleasant to note that 
very few modern texts transgress in this particular. The 
teacher can develop but little skill in the fine art of 
questioning, so long as he merely " hears lessons," with 
book in hand, even if it is one free from vicious cut-and- 
dried questions. 

Dispensing with text-book and notes while conducting 
a recitation greatly strengthens the confidence of the 
pupils in the teacher; they soundly respect a knowledge 
and skill that can " hear a lesson without the book." 
They feel the faith that is always inspired by the evi- 



THE LESSON 69 

dence of capacity. Indeed, one of the best means the 
teacher has of gaining and holding easy control of a 
school is to show himself thoroughly acquainted with 
the branches he undertakes to teach ; and one of the 
most impressive proofs that he can give his pupils that 
he is master of his subjects is to teach without a book. 

It should be said, however, in this connection, that 
the inexperienced teacher must be on his guard, in cast- 
ing free of the book, lest he be led by irrelevant ques- 
tions or remote associations of thought to permit himself 
and the class to stray too far from the essentials of the 
lesson. 

III. The whole recitation should be conducted for the 
benefit of every member of the class. 

Each pupil responsible for every question. — A pupil's 
recitation must not be considered as merely a sort of 
private affair between him and the teacher. It is a mat- 
ter of concern to every other member of the class. Each 
one should be made to feel that he secures a personal 
gain by attending to every question and the answer 
given to it. 

After a pupil has recited, the teacher should first call 
upon the class for criticisms upon any inaccuracy or in- 
completeness, withholding his own comments until he 
has drawn all he can from the class. Thus every pupil 
will be brought to feel that he is responsible to the class 
— as its representative — as well as to the teacher, for 
the correctness and fullness of each answer he gives. 

Blackboard work. — Not a few teachers violate rule III. 
by permitting a pupil to explain his work at the black- 
board to the teacher alone, or to the teacher and such 
fellow-pupils as may have finished their own work at the 
board. Blackboard work, more than any other, is for 



JO METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

the benefit of the whole class ; if it is not so done, there 
is no need of its being done at all. 

To get the best results from board work, three things 
are necessary : (i) all such work must be so done as to 
be self-explanatory ; (2) adequate explanation of his own 
work should be required of each pupil who has been sent 
to the board ; (3) such explanation should be given only 
after all board work assigned has been completed and 
the whole class is ready to give attention. 

The whole class responsible for an explanation. — Not 
only should the one who has placed work on the board 
be called on to give a full explanation, — to the class, not 
to the teacher, — but other members of the class should 
be vigorously and searchingly questioned as to the accu- 
racy, clearness, and neatness of the work done. 

Sometimes the teacher will find it expedient to inter- 
rupt, with questions, the pupil who is explaining at the 
board, not only to draw from him a fuller and clearer 
discussion, but to keep the class on the qui vive and 
make them see more than they would otherwise. 

Pupils should stand to recite. — Guiding his practice 
by the principle that the recitation is for the benefit of 
the whole class, the teacher will insist that a pupil shall 
always rise to recite. Pupils can be brought to feel that 
it is a discourtesy to both teacher and classmates to 
recite sitting. It must be kept in mind that each pupil 
should recite as much to the class as to the teacher; 
hence, reciting should be done standing, so that the whole 
class may see and hear to the best advantage. A class 
is much like a parliamentary body, and, of course, in 
such bodies members rise to speak. 

The pupil reciting is also benefited by the enforcement 
of this rule, for he is thereby drilled in self-possession, 



THE LESSON 7 1 

he learns to think and talk while on his feet, and the 
effort involved helps to fix in his mind the matter recited 
upon. The rule should be general and thoroughly en- 
forced ; no pupil who is able to stand should be permitted 
to recite or to ask questions sitting. 

IV. Teaching skill culminates in the art of question- 
ing ; the teacher s questions should serve all the ends of 
the recitation and of class control. 

Knowledge - testing questions. — Questions are the 
teacher's class tools, and each kind has its own special 
function. Questions intended to test knowledge — to 
discover the extent and kind of the pupils' acquisition 
of facts — contain the interrogatives " What ? " " Who ? " 
" When ? " " Where ? " or modifications of these. 

To reach the will. — Questions designed to quicken the 
feelings and direct the will contain appeals to the personal 
likes and dislikes of the pupils, or to their sense of right. 
They help to cultivate the ability to put one's self in 
another's place, to see and feel from another's standpoint. 
For example, " How would you feel in that case ? " " What 
made the boy act so, in the story?" "Which was the 
nobler deed ? " " Why was that a cowardly thing to do? " 

Questions for developing and testing. — Questions that 
are to test and develop thought-powers — observation, 
comparison, judgment, imagination — hinge upon " What 
kind?" "How many?" "How much?" "Why?" 
"How?" "What effect?" used in some form. 

The following suggestions are in line with the rule 
given above (IV.). 

Notes 071 Rule IV. 

1. It is better, whenever possible, to question a pupil 
into apprehending a thing than to tell him directly. 



72 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

This is true only when the pupil has some basis of 
knowledge from which to start. The dictum, that a 
pupil should not be told what he can find out for him- 
self, can be followed only when the pupil is possessed 
of some elementary data to set out from in his search 
for more knowledge. 

Socratic questioning. — The mode of questioning called 
the "Socratic" has for its primary function to lead the 
pupil step by step into clear and true apprehension of 
facts, and their right relations. It may be so used in 
any school exercise, from a primary object lesson to an 
investigation of a sociological problem. 

The Socratic method begins just within the circle of 
the pupil's knowledge, and by proceeding no faster than 
the learner willingly goes and understands as he goes, 
gradually leads him to see clearly for himself what was 
before obscure or wrongly perceived. 

Illustration. — The method is susceptible of many 
variations and modifications to suit the needs of the 
pupil, and the character of the subject. The following 
may be taken as a simple illustration : — 

In spite of the teacher's explanation, John does not yet 
understand why division of fractions can be performed 
by inversion and multiplication. Instead of repeating 
the explanation, the teacher questions John, beginning 
just within his knowledge of the properties of fractions. 

TeacJier. John, write on the board ^ to be divided by ^. 

Now, why can't you divide the one by the 

other, just as they are ? 
John. They are not the same kind. 
Teacher. What must be the condition of the fractions, 

then, before you can divide ? 



THE LESSON 



73 



They must have the same denominator. 
What are they when reduced to a common 
denominator ? Write them. 



| and 



John. 

Teacher. 

Jo Jin. 

Teacher. If you divide |- by f what is the quotient ? 

John is a little confused and cannot tell. The teacher 
has him express the fractions thus, — 4 sixths -5- by 3 
sixths, and asks again what the quotient is. John sees 
it this time and answers correctly — |-, or ij. 
Teacher. What did you do, a while ago, to reduce the 

two fractions to the same name? 
John. \_After some thinking and, perJiaps, further qnes- 
tioni?ig.~\ I multiplied both terms of each 
fraction by the denominator of the other. 
Teacher. Now multiply § by the j- inverted. You see 
the result is the same as before — |-. What 
did you multiply together ? 
John. I multiplied the numerator only of each 

fraction by the denominator of the other. 
Teacher. What did you have in our first process of 
division, that you do not have in this ? 
I had two sixes for denominators, and one 

more step in the operation. 
What is the advantage of the latter process, then? 
It saves the trouble of reducing to a common 

denominator. 
Why, then, do we invert and multiply in 

division of fractions ? 
Because we get the correct result more readily 

than by any other way. 
[Clinching the idea.~] Yes, inverting and mul- 
tiplying reduces the fractions to a common 
denominator, and sets the numerator of the 



John. 

Teacher. 
John. 

Teacher. 

John. 

Teacher. 



74 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

dividend over the numerator of the divisor, all in 
one operation. 

Any teacher will understand that such an illustration 
is largely theoretical ; the answers are, of necessity, 
manufactured. In practice, the conversation between 
the teacher and John would probably be three or four 
times as long as given in the illustration, and in the 
course of it the teacher would doubtless discover that 
several things which he supposed John to be familiar 
with, John would seem never to have heard of. But the 
line of questioning must be persisted in, and John must 
be led to give understandingly the answers, in sub- 
stance, as shown above. Even after all is done John's 
grasp of the matter may still be quite feeble ; but it will 
be far stronger than it would be as the result of a mere 
repetition of an explanation by the teacher. 

2. The teacher should frame his own questions. 
This has been sufficiently adverted to already. Only 

by laying aside text-books and notes, and making his 
own questions in line with his definite prearranged 
lesson plan, can the teacher adjust his conduct of the 
recitation to the needs of the class, and make his work 
alive instead of mechanical. 

3. The manner of the teacher in questioning should 
show alert interest, forceful personality, and complete 
possession of self and of the subject of the recita- 
tion. 

4. Questions must not be haphazard, ill-digested, 
hesitating, or rambling. They must show a logical con- 
nection, a natural unfolding of the subject, that shall 
help the pupils to correlate and unify their knowledge 
of the lesson. 



THE LESSON 75 

5. The business of the pupil in class is to attend and 
think. 

Pupils should be independent and honest in their an- 
swers. — To aid in stimulating these activities, the teacher 
should surprise the inattentive pupil with an unexpected 
question, and should occasionally lay a question trap 
for the unthinking. Pupils are prone to say, in reply 
to a question, what they think the teacher wants them 
to say ; and when, as is not infrequently the case, 
teachers betray, by a look or a tone or the form of 
the question, what they want said in reply, the pupil 
readily takes the cue. To break up this and lead pupils 
to make correctness, accuracy, and their own honest 
judgment the standards of an answer, rather than what 
they suppose the teacher to want said, it is allowable for 
the teacher occasionally and good-humoredly to lead 
such pupils on a wrong track, by look or tone or form 
of question, and so force them, for safety, back upon 
their own carefully considered thought. 

Some pupils may go to the other extreme and be some- 
what too independent of the book and of the teacher. 
But this is better than subserviency and unthinking ac- 
ceptance of authority. The teacher should decide noth- 
ing dogmatically — not even a question of fact. A 
teacher's handling of a class should, of course, be posi- 
tive and full of character without trenching on the divine 
right of a pupil to hold his own honestly thought-out 
opinion and to express it properly. Nothing is ever 
gained, and much is often lost, by a supercilious dogma- 
tism that hardly permits a pupil to ask a respectful 
question, much less to express a judgment differing 
from the author's or the teacher's own. 

Everything should be done to foster the habit of fear- 



y6 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

less and thorough examination of facts and the honesty 
and accuracy of individual judgment that should charac- 
terize a free and self-reliant manhood and womanhood. 

No pupil should know when he is to be questioned. — 
To secure attention from all members of the class, no 
pupil should know just when he is to be questioned. 
The teacher must keep accurate record of the number 
of formal recitations each pupil is called upon to make, 
and thus see to it that all are given equal opportunities ; 
but he must so handle the class that no one will be able 
to foresee just when his "turn " is to come. As a rule, 
the question should be asked before a name is called. 
If the teacher says, "Mr. Smith, please give a brief 
account of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independ- 
ence," the other members of the class will relax atten- 
tion as soon as they hear Mr. Smith's name called, and 
will thus lose the full force of the question, or will per- 
haps give it no attention at all. But if the teacher says, 
"Give a brief account, etc., Mr. Smith," each pupil, not 
knowing who is to answer, until the question is finished 
and a name called, gives attention and. thinks of what 
he can say if his name is called. As an aid in secur- 
ing attention the class should be made to understand 
that, except for unusual reasons, a question will not 
be repeated. To repeat questions is to cultivate lax 
attention. 

6. As a rule, a question should be a clear, clean-cut, 
crisply uttered interrogative sentence, syntactically and 
rhetorically correct ; and answers should be clear, ex- 
plicit, and affirmative. Pupils, when in doubt, some- 
times answer with a sentence affirmative in form, but 
with an interrogative inflection. Such answering is not 
to be tolerated. Prompt questioning and prompt answer- 



THE LESSON yj 

ing should be the rule. The teacher should have his 
next question clearly formulated before the answer to 
his last one has been finished ; and the pupil either 
knows or does not know, and he should quickly show 
knowledge or confess ignorance. Too often much time 
and energy are allowed to leak out through the gap be- 
tween the end of an answer and the beginning of the 
next question. 

Kinds of questions to avoid. — Categorical questions, 
requiring only yes or no for answers ; elliptical questions 
— really answers with the chief words omitted, the pupils 
being expected to supply them ; and all questions that 
suggest the answers, — should be carefully avoided. No 
teacher should be guilty of such monstrosities as " Did 
the South win in the battle of Bull Run ? " (categorical) ; 

" The singular number denotes ? " (elliptical) ; " To 

find a third of a number you divide it by three, don't 
you ? " (suggestive). 

Parliamentary usage in class. — 7. A recitation should 
be conducted in general conformity with simple parlia- 
mentary usage. The teacher is the presiding officer, 
and through him the business of the class should be 
carried on. If a pupil desires to ask a question, to offer 
a criticism, or to show his readiness to answer some 
question, he should raise his hand and secure the " recog- 
nition of the chair" before saying anything. " Talking 
out " in class, for any purpose, without such recognition 
should not be permitted even in primary grades. 

Conversational style in the recitation. — This rule 
need not, however, prevent the freest and pleasantest 
use of the conversational style in the recitation, with even 
the cracking of an occasional joke — if it be clean and 
genuine. The teacher of true dignity rarely needs to 



78 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

call attention to his position ; he can be formal without 
being stiff, and can unbend into easy colloquial friendli- 
ness and humor without becoming familiar or patronizing. 

In the recitation, as at all other points of contact 
between teacher and pupils, the teacher's demeanor 
should be one of unfailing courtesy ; in this he should 
be a model. And courtesy is something to insist on 
between pupil and pupil. The too common offense of 
thoughtlessly laughing at the crude and ignorant an- 
swer of some timid or dull pupil should not be tolerated. 

8. The success of the recitation must be measured 
by what the average pupils get from the lesson. 

Most effort should be spent on the slow learners. — The 
tendency of any teacher, and especially the beginner, 
is to shape his work to fit the capacity of the brighter 
and more responsive and appreciative pupils. Conse- 
quently, much that is done goes over the heads of the 
dull and the average. 

But if he makes sure that the dull pupils get a toler- 
ably firm grasp of the facts and receive some effective 
thought stimulus, so that they can go to their next work 
with interest quickened and power strengthened even 
by a little, then he may be confident that the lesson has 
been made plain to average minds and those above the 
average. 

Explanations to the slow may grow tedious to the quick- 
minded. — However, it requires some care to keep the 
brighter students from losing interest while matters are 
being made plain to the slower thinkers. The quicker 
intelligences have a right to their full share of attention. 
A skillful teacher will draw explanations, criticisms, and 
simplified statements from them that will make matters 
plain to the slower minds, and at the same time serve 



THE LESSOIV yg 

to secure the interested attention and the cooperative 
activity of those who, having readily grasped all the 
points themselves, would grow listless under the teacher's 
detailed and reiterated explanations to the backward 
ones. 

The teacher needs to exercise a high degree of skill 
and care to preserve a just balance between the two 
extremes met with in every class — those who get 
through their work rather too easily, and those whose 
consciousness of weakness or lack of advancement dis- 
courages their best effort. But his reward is his success 
in holding all to unflagging effort — revealing loftier 
heights that challenge the most strenuous endeavor of 
the strong, planting in the weak hopes which they may 
justly expect to realize. 



CHAPTER VI 

DRILLS ; REVIEWS ; EXAMINATIONS 

Modified forms of the recitation. — Drills, reviews, and 
examinations are modified forms of the recitation. They 
have definite purposes and their own methodology. 

DRILLS 

Drill may be made to serve all the ends of teaching ; 
it fixes instruction, making knowledge permanent ; it 
develops power ; it cultivates skill. The word " drill " 
sums up all that is meant by repetition and practice. In 
teaching, as in military tactics, drilling means having 
certain movements of muscle or of mind, or of both 
working together, done over and over again, until action 
becomes automatic. 

The end of drill is automatic action. — A primary 
class is drilled on the multiplication table — which 
means the pupils repeat and re-repeat what has been 
learned, and apply it again and again, until the associa- 
tion of two factors with their product becomes automatic, 
and the knowledge is permanently possessed. 

Another class is drilled on the chief periods of 
American history, with the characterizing events and 
"boundary dates" of each; another, on the chemical 
symbols ; another on the binomial formula. In all these 
cases, and in others like them, the object of the drill is 

80 



DRILLS] REVIEWS', EXAMINATIONS 8 1 

to fix knowledge, to make something a permanent pos- 
session of memory. 

When a class is given problems not found in the text, 
and differing more or less in form of statement, but all 
based on a common principle, the purpose is drill to 
secure quick recognition of known relations under new 
forms and conditions. Judgment is both developed and 
trained — it grows both stronger and readier. 

When pupils are timed on the correct addition of a 
column of figures, or on a penmanship exercise, or on 
accuracy and rapidity of some manipulative work, the 
specific object is skill — they are being trained by drill. 

Drill is usable in every school exercise. — There should 
be drill in everything which is to be used as an instru- 
ment in the further acquirement of knowledge or in the 
increase of power or skill. Certain activities are to be 
drilled into the senses, some into the memory, some into 
the muscles, — in short, all the faculties of body and 
mind are to be exercised in drill, each in turn or all 
together. Every exercise of the school furnishes ma- 
terial for drill, for every gain of real value a pupil makes 
may be used as a means or instrument in making further 
and greater gains. 

Drilling to cultivate senses and memory. — All pupils, 
but especially those in primary grades, should be drilled 
in observation, in taking note of all their surroundings 
through all the senses, especially the eye and ear. 
Nature-study — genuine, out-door nature-study — offers 
inexhaustible opportunities and invitations to exercise 
the senses. 

There are certain facts in every branch of study, and 
in every employment, that must be laid hold of by the 
verbal memory, and held with unyielding grip. Among 
roark's meth. — 6 



82 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

these may be specifically named the tables in arithme- 
tic, the fundamental definitions and rules of arithmetic 
and grammar (provided, of course, the pupils have in- 
ductively derived these for themselves), formulas in 
algebra, axioms in geometry, the nuclear dates in 
history, and the technicalities and routine work in any 
business. The teacher must not stop short of securing an 
instant and accurate recollection by his pupils of these 
things whenever and wherever they may be called for. 

Drilling to secure quickness and accuracy of doing. — 
The fundamental processes in various branches, es- 
pecially in mathematics and subjects that involve 
mathematics, must also be so drilled upon that they 
will be performed automatically. No rapid or effective 
progress can be made in any subject until the student is 
able to use the symbols, forms, and processes peculiar 
to that subject, easily, freely, automatically. A pupil 
cannot make rapid progress in arithmetic until he can 
use the fundamental operations correctly and rapidly as 
instruments. He can make no satisfactory advance- 
ment in algebra until he has at his fingers' ends at 
least the elementary symbolism of algebra and the 
processes of factoring. 

No enjoyment can accrue to a pupil from reading, 
until he can rapidly recognize the printed words as 
familiar expressions of thought. He cannot express his 
own thought in writing with any facility until he has 
mastered the mere mechanics of composition — spelling, 
capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphing. 

METHODS OF DRILL 

Drill must arouse interest — The rule of first im- 
portance in drilling is that the interested consciousness of 



DRILLS; REVIEWS', EXAMINATIONS 83 

the pupils must be evoked throughout the exercise ; 
mere dull monotony of repetition is not drill. Gain in 
power and skill is made in the same degree in which — 
to use Matthew Arnold's fine phrase — consciousness 
permeates the work. 

" Thoroughness." — It is in violation of this rule that 
pedagogical crimes are committed in the name of " thor- 
oughness." To have the pupils thresh over the old 
straw of their learning is not to secure thoroughness. 
The strong distaste for some studies or* portions of sub- 
jects that results from such work seems to close the 
pores of the mind, so to speak, and thus effectually pre- 
vents such a "soaking in " of the matter as is essential 
to true thoroughness. Drill must be stimulative, not 
deadening. 

Drill must be by use. — Another rule, too often vio- 
lated, is that drill should be given, for the most part, 
through practical use. For example, drill in the multi- 
plication table should be mainly in the solving of simple 
problems in which multiplication is required; drill in 
finding the L.C.M. or G.C.D. should not be in the 
handling of mere number abstractions, but in the doing 
of simple work in which finding the L.C.M. or G.C.D. 
is not an end in itself, but a means to some further 
end. 

It was not so long ago that children were taught to 
write by having them practice copies of " pothooks" — 
up curves and down curves and slants. Good teaching 
wastes no time in such futilities, but puts the learner at 
work to form words, words that are familiar from hav- 
ing just been used in the reading lesson. 

Nobody would be guilty of trying to train a boy to 
use a hatchet by having him practice various strokes in 



84 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

the air ! He is put to cutting something, to making 
something that can be used, if only for kindling. 

Drill must be adapted to both subject-matter and 
pupil. — Although drill consists essentially in repetition, 
the value of the results depends greatly on the adapta- 
tion of the repetition to subject-matter and to pupils. 

If the senses are to be trained to quick and accurate 
observation of a wide range of phenomena, the drill 
must be one of constant impression through sense per- 
ception of objective facts. 

If the memory is to be drilled into power to grasp 
and hold words, symbols, forms, just as they are, then 
the drill is one of repeated impressions, each identical 
with the others. 

If the elaborative faculties are to be developed and 
trained, the work to that end is in repetition of activities 
and processes, instead of repetition of impressions. For 
example, in drilling upon division of fractions^ it is the 
process that should be repeated, each time with different 
quantities. 

Individual drill. — In adapting drill to different pupils, 
the peculiar need of each is first to be determined. One 
may need special training in visual observation and 
visual memory ; another, in orderliness ; another, in 
self-control ; another, in ease of oral or written expres- 
sion. To reach these needs requires individual drilling 
— the practicing of each individual in that in which he 
most lacks power and facility. 

This individual work can be done in class, and should 
be done there, mainly, in order both to save time and 
to give the pupil the fullest benefit of the class mag- 
netism. 

Some illustrations and suggestions are given below, 



DRILLS', REVIEWS; EXAMINATIONS 85 

indicating how each pupil may be helped to what he 
needs, and at the same time the class be drilled as a 
whole. 

Drill illustrated. — In United States history it may 
be desirable to drill the whole class on the first epoch, 
with its periods, and, while so doing, to help Henry in 
the matter of dates, which he finds it particularly diffi- 
cult to fix and retain. The teacher, remembering that 
the more associations any fact has, the easier it is re- 
called, puts on the board an outline of the first epoch 
of American history, thus : : — 

(Epochs) i 1 Colonization, 1000-1776. 

{ i 2 Exploration and Discovery — from the voyage 
of Ericson, 1000, to the voyage of La Salle, 
1682. 
2 Settlement — from Raleigh's colony, 1585, to 
(Periods) -j the settlement of Georgia, 1733. 

2 Consolidation — from the " Stamp Act " Con- 
gress, 1765, to the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, 1776. 

He first calls upon some clear-minded member of the 
class to read this outline through, aloud. Then, stand- 
ing before the class, the teacher calls on John to read 
rapidly and in order the names of the epoch and its 
included periods, and has Henry, who is weak in dates, 
stand at the same time and read the "boundary dates" 
as the epoch and periods are named. 

Then another pupil is called to name the events that 
bound the periods, while Henry gives the corresponding 
dates again. The drill is continued in this way for a 
while, different pupils being called on to name the 

1 This outline and the illustrated drill are based on the work of Dr. 
R. H. Holbrook. 



86 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

epoch, periods, and events, sometimes in forward order, 
sometimes in reverse order, sometimes irregularly, while 
Henry is kept steadily on the dates. So far the pupils 
have been permitted to read from the board if they 
chose, although encouraged to depend on memory ; but 
now the outline is erased, and Henry is required to give 
the dates in order, while the class respond in concert, 
with the epoch, periods, and events. Finally, Henry is 
asked to give the whole outline, dates and all. 

Class drills. — At another time there may be a class 
drill, either on this or some other epoch of American 
history, in which the teacher calls on one pupil to give 
the outline or a part of it, and what he gives — if correct 
— is immediately given by the class in concert. 

The individual drill and the class drill may be com- 
bined. They may be varied, separately or together, in 
numberless ways that the ingenuity of the teacher and 
the necessities of his work must suggest. Enough has 
been given to show one way of using the drill ; it can 
be readily and effectively used in the same way in any 
subject which makes demands on the verbal memory. 

Drilling the reflective activities. — In drilling on arith- 
metical processes or others involving the exercise of the 
reflective activities, the method will be somewhat differ- 
ent. Here, memory of facts, ready perception of nu- 
merical relations, and quickness and accuracy of work, 
are the objects of the drill. 

In elementary percentage, for example, after the pupils 
have had some experience with the different cases, — in 
which, it is to be hoped, the teacher has not used the 
formulas, but has made the class acquainted, instead, 
with the " ioo % " analysis, or some other, — it is desira- 
ble to drill upon quick recognition of any case, and 



DRILLS; REVIEWS; EXAMINATIONS 8? 

ready and intelligent application of the analysis. For 
this purpose the teacher has at hand a number of prac- 
tical problems, taken from sources other than the text- 
book in use, and illustrating all the cases. Two or three 
problems under each case should be written on the black- 
board and numbered, but not in the order of the cases, 
thus : — 

(i) A man paid $160 for a horse, and, after keeping him a month, 
sold him for $192. Not counting the expense of the horse's 
keep or the value of his service for the month, what per cent 
did the man make ? 

(2) One rainy day only 16 children came to Room 10, School No. 5. 

That number was just 40 % of the regular enrollment for that 
room ; what was the regular enrollment ? 

(3) A workman's wages were $40 per month. It became necessary 

for his employers to reduce wages 15%; how much did this 
man get under the new scale ? 

(4) A farmer sold his wheat in 1897 for $1.04 per bushel, which was 

60 % more than he got in 1896 ; what did he receive per bushel 
in 1896? 

(5) A roll of carpet, sold at auction, brought $1.60 per yard, which 

was 20 % less than cost ; what did the carpet cost per yard ? 

Teacher. What is the base in problem one, John? 

John. One hundred and sixty dollars. 

Teacher. What is the base in problem three, Henry? 

Henry. Forty dollars. 

Teacher. What is the base in two, Sarah? 

Sarah. The enrollment, which is to be found. 



The drill continues in this way with suitable variations, 
questions upon the " sense " of the problems, etc., until 
any term is instantly recognized by the pupils. Then 
the teacher says quickly, "Jane and David may go to 
the board. Jane may apply the hundred per cent analy- 



88 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

sis to problem two ; David, to problem four. The others 
will look on and note errors. The time limit is three 
minutes. Ready — work ! " 

The drill must never drag. — These illustrations may 
serve to suggest something of the method of the drill. 
The point the teacher must not forget is, that the object 
of the drill is true thorougJmess — ready and reliable re- 
membering, prompt judging, quick and accurate saying 
and doing. To secure these the drill must never be per- 
mitted to drag ; there must be, throughout, unflagging 
interest, unhesitating quickness, and sustained good 
humor. These essentials will mark the drill if the 
teacher shows such perfect mastery of the subjects and 
of his methods as to make his thinking and his ques- 
tioning in drill appear almost automatic, and if he is 
careful to vary the exercise. 

The teacher's questions must be clear, concise, tersely 
put, pricking the unwary and inattentive, stimulating the 
alert, rousing all to a high pitch of effort. The drill 
at its best waits for no pupil to patch an answer to- 
gether, has no " nexts," allows no repeating of questions ; 
it swings along with a rush and verve that quicken the 
blood and make the brain cells tingle. Teacher and 
pupils come out of such a drill as out of a romp on a 
crisp day — refreshed, glowing, tonicized. 

REVIEWS 

Differences between drills and reviews. — The primary 
object of the drill is to bring about thoroughness ; the 
primary object of the review is to test thoroughness. A 
drill may be upon either new matter or old ; a review is 
necessarily on what has been passed over. The drill 
reenforces any one or all of the processes of teaching ; 



DRILLS', REVIEWS; EXAMINATION'S 89 

the review reveals the permanency of results, both of 
regular teaching and of drill. 

The review shows the pupils' weaknesses and strength, 
their gains and deficiencies, to the teacher and to them- 
selves. Its peculiar value lies in its effectiveness as a 
means of showing the teacher what parts of the subject 
and what processes of his work need more attention. 

The purpose of reviewing is not to prepare pupils for 
examinations. — Reviewing should never be prostituted 
to the exclusive use of getting pupils ready for examina- 
tion, as is often done. Of course, all rightly planned 
reviews will aid in preparing for examinations, if there 
are to be any ; but " the examination " should never be 
set up as the end and aim of reviewing. On the con- 
trary, everything — even the examination, if possible — 
should be made to illustrate the value and desirability of 
knowledge for its own sake and for its good uses. 

Reviews should be frequent. — When reviews are freed 
from any function in the examination machinery, they 
will naturally be distributed throughout the term and 
held frequently, instead of being crowded together near 
the close of the year or half-year, and thus perverted 
from their right use to that of a "stuffing machine." 

Should not be " set." — Reviews should not, as a rule, 
occur at fixed times ; it is not best to have one in each 
branch once a month, as is sometimes done, regardless 
of the requirements of the pupil or the subject. A re- 
view is more effective when it is somewhat unexpected 
by the pupils, because it is then a truer test of their 
real possessions and power than when it follows a 
period of hurried and nervous preparation for the 
specific purpose of meeting a test. 

Reviews may be used to save time. — It is best to 



90 METHOD TN EDUCATION 

review after some definite portion of a subject or all of 
it has been finished. For example, in physiology, soon 
after digestion has been studied through, some day, 
instead of discussing the lesson assigned, the teacher 
will, without any preliminaries, carry the class through 
a rapid oral or written review of digestion. Sometimes 
there are a few minutes of a period left after the regular 
recitation is finished, and the teacher, instead of dis- 
missing the class and wasting the time, orders out 
" scratch-books and pencils," and has answers written 
to ten short, sharp questions covering some matter the 
pupils had almost forgotten having studied. Or when 
the lesson is of such a character that some of the pupils 
work at the board and others remain at their seats, it is 
an excellent plan to have the latter restate quickly the 
principles and processes of the work being done by the 
others. In such a case, in addition to the value of 
the review, there is also the advantage of keeping one 
section of the class from idling while waiting for the 
other section to prepare board work. 

A subject may be reviewed after it has .been laid aside. 
— There is no reason why the reviewing of a particular 
subject should be limited to the time during which that 
subject is studied. It is well to have an occasional 
"going over" in a subject after it has been completed 
in regular course. The natural interrelation of subjects 
will necessarily occasion some reviewing of each in the 
study of others. For example, geography will naturally 
be reviewed in history, history in civics, algebra in 
the higher mathematics. But more than this is meant 
by the suggestion made above ; a definite, direct review 
of some part of history should be made occasionally by 
the class in civics, of arithmetic by the class in alge- 



DRILLS; REVIEWS; EXAMINATION'S 91 

bra, of grammar by the class in rhetoric. Such work 
will have a very wholesome effect in showing a pupil, 
among other things, that when he " finished" a subject 
it should have been finished only as a tool with which to 
do higher and more efficient work. Such an occasional 
fishing up of things that have nearly sunk into the sub- 
liminal consciousness — as much school work does, soon 
after it is done — will do much good. 

Reviews should be varied. — Reviews should, like 
every other school exercise, be varied. In any given 
subject the review may be at one time on facts, at an- 
other on principles, at another on processes ; or it may 
be so handled as to show the interdependence of facts, 
principles, and processes. The teacher who studies his 
work and keeps in mind the value of interest, will devise 
in his reviews some odd or unexpected turn that will 
throw a flash light on what he wants photographed by 
memory. 

Reviews should show logical sequence. — Each review 
should be made to cover some definite logical part of a 
subject, so that the pupils may, while being tested, get, 
at the same time, a clearer apprehension of the order of 
arrangement of the subordinate topics and their relation 
to the main divisions of the branch. A well-planned 
review sets things in true perspective, putting the larger 
values in plainer view and ranging the lesser ones in 
the background. A pupil will often come out of such 
an exercise knowing more than when he went in, and 
with a better understanding of what he did know. 

Subjects should be outlined. — In advanced classes, 
when any subject is first begun, the entire subject, or 
some definite and considerable part of it, should be 
presented in outline as a lesson-whole ; and successive 



92 METHOD /AT EDUCATION 

lessons should develop each outline in more or less detail, 
according to the grade of the class. Then every review 
should be made to aid in fixing these outlines clearly 
and permanently in the mind of each pupil. From time 
to time, portions of the outlines of different subjects 
should be reproduced by the pupils, entirely without 
notes and either from memory or by logical develop- 
ment from point to point. And as a part of every 
final review the whole class should give a condensed 
outline, or topical classification, of all the matter under 
review. 

Not only should each review show the close relation 
and interdependence of the parts of a subject within the 
limits of that review, but should also be related to other 
reviews made in the same subject. By such careful and 
constant interlocking of topic with topic, of subject with 
subject, the learning mind can be brought to see and 
enjoy the oneness of all knowledge. 

EXAMINATIONS 

Examinations more a question in management than in 
method. — A full treatment of examinations belongs in 
educational management rather than in educational 
method. It is a live question now, and promises to be 
for some time, whether examinations, in the commonly 
accepted meaning of the term, should have a place in 
school administration. Assuming, however, that they 
will continue, for a while at least, to form a more or 
less prominent part of the routine work of most schools, 
a few suggestions are offered here as to how the best 
results may be secured from them. 

The purpose of an examination. — The usual purpose 
of a set examination is to aid in determining the fitness 



DRILLS', REVIEWS; EXAMINATION'S 93 

of the one examined, either to continue in the work he 
is now doing, to lay it aside as completed in the school 
course, or to undertake other and more difficult work. 
The examination should not be used otherwise than as 
only one of the means of finding out whether a pupil is 
ready for the next forward step. Even so used it is liable 
to great abuse, and in any but skillful hands is a rather 
lame device, attended by many well-recognized evils. 

How inherent evils of the examination may be allevi- 
ated. — To alleviate these evils, less importance should 
be attached to examinations as usually conducted, and 
great care should be taken to make them fair. The 
first suggestion is really included in the second, for it 
is not fair to base an estimate of the pupils' fitness upon 
an examination alone. The pupils' daily work, espe- 
cially their growth in that work, and the results of 
reviews should count for more than set examinations. 

Also, in order to be fair, an examination should test 
not merely the work of memory, but the work of all 
the other powers that have been under cultivation. 
That a pupil should remember all the facts he has met 
with in any study is of less importance than that he 
should have drawn strength and skill from his handling 
of them, and should be able readily to discover for him- 
self other facts and weigh their values. 

The conditions of examination should be natural. — 
Examinations should be of a sort to test the pupils 
under conditions that will leave them natural and un- 
constrained. What is meant is illustrated by a most 
pleasing incident, related as having occurred a while 
ago at an English university. A young woman, who 
had come up for an examination in some department 
in natural history, was in great dread of the ordeal, 



94 METHOD IN ED U CAT 10 1ST 

and had she been put through a formal examination 
would surely have failed, though her class record was 
very high. The examiner, a non-resident professor, 
who was to test the applicants in this branch, hearing 
of her nervousness, secured an introduction before the 
hour for work arrived, and took her for a walk through 
the Museum of Natural History. They talked freely 
and naturally, with much mutual enjoyment, upon the 
young woman's specialty, illustrating the discussion by 
frequent references to the specimens around them. At 
the end of a half-hour, the professor amazed and de- 
lighted the student by telling her she had passed a very 
brilliant examination. Although such conditions are not 
often possible, yet the incident shows the lines along 
which the ideal may be approached. 

Many questions not necessary. — That examination 
would be fair and rational in which the pupil could 
show his knowledge, power, and skill by applying them 
to the mastery of some piece of work which would in- 
volve them all, but which had never been set him to do 
before. A reliable and just test of a pupil's ability to 
enter the second reader would be his success in reading 
a page or two at the first of that book. To determine 
whether a pupil may lay aside arithmetic he should be 
asked to solve two or three practical problems which he 
has never seen before, but which involve principles and 
processes which he ought to be familiar with and able 
to apply readily. It is by no means necessary to have 
" ten " or any other definite number of questions asked 
or problems solved in an examination. A pupil's suc- 
cess or failure with one question can reveal as much as 
his ready or blundering handling of a dozen. 

To test a student's competence to continue his work 



DRILLS', REVIEWS; EXAMINATIONS 95 

in chemistry by himself, it should suffice to set him to 
the qualitative and quantitative determination of some 
typical compound with which he had had no previous 
acquaintance. The reading at sight of a page or two 
of new matter in Cicero or Sophocles would be a better 
test of fitness in the classics than the reading of fifty 
that had been gone over. 

Doing a better test than telling. — And so in all tech- 
nological and professional subjects, the emphasis of the 
examination should be placed on what the students can 
do — on how steadily and resourcefully they can meet 
new conditions — rather than on their telling or writing 
what they would do under those conditions. 

Somewhat may be done to relieve the over-strain that 
usually marks an examination, and to make the condi- 
tions usual and natural, by having the test in each branch 
extend through several days, but occupy daily only the 
length of time devoted to the regular recitation. 

In many branches, normal conditions — conditions 
under which a student's knowledge and capacity will 
be tested in practical life outside the school or college 
— will be further secured by making the examination 
partly oral, partly written. Each kind of work is a 
relief from the other, and both forms of expression are 
required in ordinary affairs. 

Finally, that the greatest benefit may accrue to each 
pupil from an examination, whether he fails or passes, 
the work, after being estimated, should be fully dis- 
cussed by the teacher with the class, and the value of 
the answers clearly shown. 

In some such ways as these it is believed that the 
evils and absurdities of the " examination grind " can be 
much relieved. 



CHAPTER VII 

RELATIVE VALUES OF SCHOOL STUDIES AND EXERCISES 1 

Psychology teaches that the operations of the mind 
are acquisition, assimilation, reprod,7iction. In any scheme 
of formal education, the courses of study and the several 
branches should be planned and selected with a view to 
securing the fullest development along all these lines of 
activity. 

Curriculum making a subject in management. — A full 
discussion of what studies should find place in an ideal 
scheme and in what order they should come, belongs in 
management rather than in methodology. It is intended 
here to take the principal and typical subjects that are 
common to school curricula as they now exist, and discuss 
briefly their relative values as acquisitional, assimilational, 
and expressional, preliminary to a treatment of the meth- 
odology of each. 

No hard-and-fast classification possible. — It is to be 
clearly understood, however, that in this classification no 
exact and rigid partitioning off of school exercises, ac- 
cording to psychological value, is possible. Each branch 
of study calls into activity, to a greater or less extent, 
every operation of the mind. Not only is this true, but 
every lesson also, rightly managed, provokes all three 
phases of the mind's activity. The purpose is to group 
school exercises and studies under one or the other head, 

1 See also page 258, Roark's " Psychology in Education." 
96 



VALUES OF STUDIES AND EXERCISES 97 

according as their value is chiefly acquisitional, assimila- 
tional, or expressional. 

ACQUISITIONAL STUDIES 

The child spends the early years of his life in acquir- 
ing a sense knowledge of his environment — in learning 
things, their names, forms, colors, odors, textures, and 
their uses. Often, of course, even in the earliest years, 
efforts to discover the why and how, as well as the what, 
of his surroundings, are frequent; but the stream of 
sense-activity is little more than rippled, in the first 
seven or eight years of life, by voluntary and deliberate 
reflection. 

Acquisition must continue actively, in school. — Up to 
the time when he enters school, he is chiefly occupied 
in laying up stores of concrete knowledge, and he should 
continue to be largely so occupied, under intelligent direc- 
tion from his teacher, for several years after school life 
begins. This does not mean that he should stop, or can 
stop, such acquisition at the age of fourteen or fifteen, 
but simply that during his earlier years he should be, while 
the brain is most plastic, intensely active in acquiring a 
first-hand knowledge of things, the facts of existence. 

Acquisition defined. — The term " acquisition," in popu- 
lar, untechnical speech, is usually made to include more 
than is meant by it here. Nor can the content of the 
term be rigidly restricted. It comes near enough to say 
that, as here used, "acquisition" is the operation that 
involves the activity of the senses and memory, and of 
judgment in its elementary functions of forming concrete 
concepts. 

Acquisitional exercises. — The earlier school exercises 
that are chiefly acquisitional are object lessons (including 
roark's meth. — 7 



98 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

nature-study), reading, spelling, oral lessons in geogra- 
phy, elementary history and biography, elementary civics, 
and physiology. And it will be borne in mind that at 
the beginnings of every subject are facts and terms — 
such as the paradigms in grammar, the tables in arith- 
metic, etc. — that must be learned outright, by main force 
of memory. But the exercises just enumerated are espe- 
cially and, with the exception of nature-study, almost 
wholly, acquisitional. 

Object lessons. — The term " object lessons," although 
in recent years it has become somewhat depreciated as 
a piece of pedagogical currency, is preferred to " nature- 
study," both because it includes more and because it 
more nearly names the kind of acquisitive activity that 
occupies the child before he enters school, and that 
should continue to occupy him for some time after 
entering. 

The purposes of object lessons are to cultivate ob- 
servation, — the function of all the senses taken sepa- 
rately and collectively, — to store the memory with 
concept-material, and to quicken the jconcept-forming 
power of judgment. 

Reading and spelling. — Reading, nearly up to where 
it should merge into a study of literature as literature, 
is almost wholly a matter of quick visual perception 
and memory of word-forms. Later, it becomes a most 
potent instrument in all forms of acquisition. 

Spelling is purely an operation of perception and 
memory ; it is acquisitional wholly, and involves neither 
assimilation, nor — in any real sense — expression. 

Oral lessons in geography, etc. — The design of oral 
lessons in geography, history, civics, and physiology is 
to store the mind of the learner, through sense and 



VALUES OF STUDIES AND EXERCISES 99 

memory or through memory alone, with the primary 
and essential facts of these subjects. .But little deliber- 
ate effort need be made, in these oral lessons, to quicken 
the reflective powers. 

Technical terms. — In every subject, the terms that 
are technical and the facts upon which the subject rests 
fundamentally must be stored away as so much material 
acquired. 

ASSIMILATIONAL STUDIES 

By the " assimilative faculties " is sometimes meant the 
reflective power only ; a truer meaning of the term 
includes also the imagination and the will — all the 
faculties by which we make over what comes into 
consciousness, and build it in as a part of our- 
selves. 

The school exercises and studies that are especially 
suited to developing the assimilative powers are nature- 
study (natural science in all its forms and throughout 
its most extensive reach), arithmetic and all other 
mathematics, technical grammar, advanced history, and 
civics (sociology), for the reflective faculty ; geography, 
history, and literature, for the imagination ; and litera- 
ture, biography, and history, for the motives and will. 
The great value of nature-study and literature in culti- 
vating the aesthetic taste must not be lost sight of. In 
this, also, they are assimilational. 

Nature-study, mathematics, grammar. — The phase 
of nature-study that emphasizes the why and how 
demands thought activity and cultivates the judgment 
— the reflective faculty. So, also, to a less degree, does 
mathematics ; and technical grammar is elementary 
logic, and should be so taught to get its best value. 



IOO METHOD IN EDUCATION 

History and civics. — History, and civics all the way 
up into sociology, are, in advanced classes, powerful 
stimulators of the reflective power — they are full of 
"whys" and "hows." 

Imagination in geography, history, and literature. — 
Every study involves imagination more or less; but 
those that cannot be taught to advantage without call- 
ing it into activity are geography, history, and liter- 
ature. 

Places, persons, events must be pictured, and the play 
of emotion must be felt through the power of imagina- 
tion, if these studies are to have any real content for 
the pupils. And .biography, history and literature are the 
subjects from which the teacher may draw most for 
the quickening of motives and the strengthening of 
will. 

EXPRESSIONAL STUDIES 

Reproduction is the third operation of the mind, and 
includes the processes of creation and expression, the 
making of thought and the uttering of it, in one form or 
another. The creative powers are fed and stimulated 
by all studies ; expression is specifically cultivated by 
but a few. 

Three forms of expression. — As there are three kinds 
of education, — physical, intellectual, moral, — so there 
are three corresponding forms of expression that should 
result from right training ; and as the three kinds of 
education are interrelated, so, of necessity, are the three 
forms of expression. 

Physical expression. — Physical expression may indi- 
cate both bodily and mental conditions. Good health 
and buoyant spirits, or their opposites, are plainly 



VALUES OF STUDIES AND EXERCISES ioi 

expressed in the physical bearing ; so, also, are crude- 
ness or culture, awkwardness or grace. 

Intellectual and emotional expression. — Intellectual 
and emotional expression usually takes the forms of 
language, literature, and art. But there is a group of 
impulses which, almost from the earliest years of a 
child's life, seek expression through motor activities. 
At first these impulses seem to be mainly physical, but 
later they are emotional, or both. Like all impulses, 
they need direction, and it is due to a recognition of 
their value to the individual and to the community that 
manual training and industrial education are finding a 
place in many schools. Language may mean what is 
usually understood by that term, and may also mean 
any symbolism, oral or graphic, by which thought and 
feeling are communicated. Thus, there is a mathe- 
matical language of terms, signs, and formulas ; a 
chemical language of symbols, weights, and equations. 

Language, in its highest form and with the elements 
of force or beauty, or both, added, becomes literature, 
by which are expressed not only man's loftiest thought 
and deepest feeling but every intermediate shade of 
intellect and emotion. 

Thought and feeling find expression also in all the 
forms of art. The painter, the sculptor, and the musi- 
cian interpret to us the order and the beauty of the 
world. They utter themselves in marble or bronze, in 
color or sound, as truly as the writer or orator utters 
himself in living words. Not only in the work of the 
artist and the writer do human thought and human 
emotion find expression, but in the creation of the 
skilled artisan also. A perfect machine, a graceful 
piece of furniture, any work done by trained hands, 



102 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

is an expression of intellectual effort and aesthetic 
feeling. 

Moral expression. — But the highest and most impor- 
tant expression of the self, the inner life, is the mani- 
festation of sterling character through righteous con- 
duct. The altruistic feelings are the latest to develop, 
in the individual as in the race. That is the deepest 
and fullest life in which they have the strongest and 
most effective expression ; and such a life is the fruit of 
the highest civilization and the best teaching. 

Expressional studies and exercises, then, are those 
that are concerned with the arts of speaking, writing, 
drawing, and modeling (extended to include painting 
and sculpture), music, and all forms of concrete doing, 
and with causing ethical feeling to complete itself in 
expression through manners and conduct. 

Speaking, writing, and behaving demand most atten- 
tion. — It is neither possible nor expedient for schools 
not specifically professional or technical, to attempt 
thoroughness and completeness in any of these except 
speaking, writing, and behaving. 

The elements of other arts should also be well taught 
in the schools; but no teaching should be considered 
well done, unless the pupils can at last express their 
thoughts and feelings, clearly and correctly, in oral 
and written language, and have formed habits of right 
living. 

The exercises and studies most useful in bringing 
these things to pass, are language lessons, composition, 
literary analysis, and forensics, for intellectual-emotional 
expression ; and good literature, biography, and history 
for moral-emotional expression. 



CHAPTER VIII 

READING 

In teaching reading there are just two ends to be 
sought: (i) to make the learner automatic and quick 
in the recognition of word and letter forms and values ; 
(2) to secure his interest in the content, the spiritual ele- 
ment, of the printed forms. Under the first is included 
the mechanics of reading — distinct and clear articula- 
tion and correct pronunciation, as well as skill in instant 
interpretation of words and letters. In the second is 
involved the character-growth of the learner, his intro- 
duction to an enjoyment of truth, goodness, beauty, as 
seen by others and expressed by them in the world's 
literature. 

Both aims to be kept in view in primary work. — Both 
these aims must be kept steadily in view by the primary 
teacher; for, although the pupil's ability to recognize, 
promptly and accurately, printed and written words, is 
the main thing to secure at first, yet at the same time 
this recognition is greatly facilitated by the feeling of 
interest aroused by the content of the words. Learning 
to read cannot, therefore, be a purely mechanical pro- 
cess, even in the first lesson ; if it were, then any arrange- 
ment of words would serve, in first exercises, without 
reference to the sense or nonsense expressed. But it is 
becoming more and more clear that from the very begin- 
ning the words used to make a reading exercise for 
learners must express thought of interest to them. 

103 



104 METHOD IiV EDUCATION 

The point where the drilling in mechanical or auto- 
matic recognition of words may cease, and the whole 
attention be given to the spiritual element — the content 
— in reading, marks the division between primary and 
advanced work. 

PRIMARY READING 

Ear-vocabulary and eye-vocabulary. — The two ends 
of primary reading — the mechanical and spiritual — 
are both reached by the best method of enabling the 
child to convert his ear-vocabulary into an eye-vocabu- 
lary, — that is, the best method by which the learner 
may come to see in printed and written words the same 
meanings that these words carry when spoken. 

When the pupil enters school at six years of age, 
he already has a vocabulary, which he understands 
and uses freely, of from five hundred to one thousand 
words — depending on his home environment. But 
these words he recognizes only through the ear, as they 
are spoken, and they constitute, therefore", an ear-vocabu- 
lary. The first aim of the teacher is to enable the child 
quickly and accurately to get the meaning of these 
words through the eye. This fundamental and essen- 
tial aim seems sometimes to be lost sight of, even when 
the right ways of reaching it are used. 

Synthetic and analytic processes. — The usual pro- 
cesses of teaching primary reading are either synthetic 
or analytic. If the principles announced in Chapter III. 
are true, it should be plain that time spent in attempting 
to bring the pupil into the new world of reading along 
the synthetic road alone, must result in great confusion 
and loss of time. But along that road, until compara- 



READING 105 

tively late years, almost all teachers tried to lead their 
pupils. 

The phonic method. — The synthetic method has two 
forms, — one the old a, b, c grind ; the other the phonic 
method. The latter is the better of the two, because it 
teaches the sounds of the letters — their vocal values, 
and thus enables a well-drilled pupil to pronounce, with 
considerable readiness, as soon as he sees them, written 
or printed words which he has not before seen. The 
a, b, c method teaches merely the names of the letters, 
and leaves the learner to get the different sounds by 
any lucky chance he can. 

The a, b, c method. — It would be a waste of space to 
discuss the teaching of the alphabet as a way of teach- 
ing reading, except as a matter of pedagogical history, 
were it not for the regrettable fact that there are teachers 
who do not attempt to use any other. 

Briefly, the a, b, c method begins by teaching the child 
his " letters," and after he learns them so that he can 
name any of them at sight, he is drilled upon spelling 
combinations of them in syllables, as a-b, ab ; u-b, ub ; 
etc. ! When this sort of thing has gone on for some 
time, the learner is supposed to be able to spell mono- 
syllabic words, such as cat, rat, bat, — and the next step 
after that is to read ! 

It is painful to have to confess that this archaic pro- 
cess is still used in many places. It should take but a 
glance to see that it is uninteresting, unnatural, and 
wasteful of time and energy. No wonder that pitiful 
thousands have grown up without ever coming into 
their rightful heritage of enjoyment of good reading, 
when they had to travel toward it along so tortuous and 
torturing a path. 



106 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Uninteresting. — The method is uninteresting because 
there is nothing in a letter, a mere symbol, to touch a 
child's experience and so to quicken his curiosity. The 
letters are meaningless to him, they have no content, 
and carry no idea. 

Unnatural. — The method is unnatural, — generically, 
because the child's natural processes are analytic ; spe- 
cifically, because no child ever learned to talk by naming 
his " letters " first, and reading aloud is simply talking 
from the printed page. 

Wasteful. — Finally it is a waste of time and energy, 
— of time, because in the time used in learning the 
alphabet and to drawl dully the spelling of senseless 
syllables and disconnected words the child could learn 
to read ; of energy, because whatever the child is forced 
to do without interest dissipates energy. And, as a 
matter of fact, the pupil does not, after all, learn to read, 
by the alphabet plan. For example, when he has named 
the letters c-a-t, in that order, he cannot, unaided, pro- 
nounce the combination, for there is nothing in the 
names of the letters that could possibly suggest what 
the word's vocal value is. 

The same objections hold against the phonic method. — 
The more modern synthetic plan teaches the sounds of 
the letters first, instead of their names, and drills the 
learner on the sounds and their symbols until he can 
readily pronounce familiar words. But the same objec- 
tions apply to this as to the a, b, c method, and with nearly 
equal force, although the phonic method has the marked 
advantage that it can be made quite interesting. The 
fundamental objection to both these methods is that they 
are synthetic. Unless the teaching be very skillful, the 
child taught by either plan will be apt to do but little 



READING 107 

more, during the first year, than half call, half spell the 
words in his primer — and that is not only not reading, 
but makes learning to read more difficult than it would 
otherwise be. 

The analytic method has two forms. — Of the analytic 
method there are also two forms, usually called the sen- 
tence method and the word method. The first assumes 
that the sentence is the unit or element of thought, and 
should therefore be the unit or element through which 
to convert the ear-vocabulary into an eye-vocabulary. It 
is analytic because it begins with whole sentences and 
proceeds to the analysis of these into words and letters. 
The word method assumes that the word is the unit or ele- 
ment of thought in the case of the child, and is the largest 
whole which he ought to be expected to grasp at first. 

The sentence method. — The sentence method is, per- 
haps, nearly an ideal way of teaching beginners to read, 
provided it can be used under ideal conditions. These 
conditions are, (1) that there shall be few pupils to each 
teacher, separable into not more than two grades ; (2) 
that there shall be ready access to nature out-of-doors ; 
(3) that the teacher shall be free to do some object teach- 
ing and language work before reading is taken up at 
all ; (4) that the teacher shall have time and tact to draw 
from the pupils themselves the sentences which they are 
afterwards to read in written or printed form; (5) that 
there shall be facilities for multiplying copies of exer- 
cises ; (6) that the teacher shall be able to draw. All 
these conditions can, of course, obtain only in the most 
fortunate schools ; the great mass of teachers cannot 
hope to enjoy them for some years to come. Yet, 
by determined effort, much can be done in the face of 
adverse conditions. 



108 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Other work may precede reading. — By some pedagog- 
ists it is deemed best not to have the child attempt to 
read at all until he has been in school some months. 
During that time he is under oral teaching in nature- 
study, language, and numbers. The objects in this 
arrangement are to enable the teacher to get at the 
contents of the children's minds — to discover what they 
know, what objects and ideas are familiar to them — 
and to give them some readiness in expressing thought 
and feeling. 

Essence of the sentence method. — The best form of the 
sentence method is that which uses, as reading matter, 
sentences made by the children themselves. This is the 
surest and simplest means of adapting the work to the 
capacity of the learner, and of being certain that only 
such words are used in the first lessons as are already 
in the ear-vocabulary of the child, and whose sounds 
and meanings are therefore familiar to him. It will be 
found that the beginner will quite readily read most 
words, even large ones, that he understands and uses 
in his talks with teacher and classmates. 

Expression should be unaffected. — These sentences 
should be the natural, free expressions of the children's 
thought and feeling, called out by simple and sensible 
conversation exercises, in which pupils and teacher talk 
interestedly and unaffectedly about some more or less, 
familiar object, or picture, or experience. In these, ex- 
ercises, the interesting talk should seem to the pupils 
to be the main thing, not the preparation of reading 
matter. 

Illustration of sentence method. — When the teacher is 
ready for the first reading exercise, he stands before 
the expectant pupils, who know by experience that 



READING 109 

something pleasant is coming, and asks them — for 
example — what grows on trees. The answers are 
many and various, of course, but some one will suggest 
apples. Holding up an apple, kept out of sight until 
now, the teacher asks, " What is the color of this apple ? " 
the answer to which leads to other suggestions as to the 
color of apples. In like manner the shape of apples is 
made the topic of a very short, animated talk. Finally 
the teacher asks, " What do we do with apples ? " and 
rapidly writes the answers on the blackboard — " We 
eat apples," "We peel apples," "We cook apples." 
He then reads these sentences distinctly to the class, 
pointing as he reads, and calls quickly on each pupil to 
say his own sentence from the board, still using the 
pointer to guide the eye as each one repeats his sen- 
tence. When all have read — though not a word has 
been said about " reading " — the teacher says, " Now 
go to your seats and each of you copy your own sen- 
tence on your slate ; then you may go out to play, and 
have a piece of this nice apple we talked about." The 
division of the apple affords good opportunity for a little 
number work. 

The sentences are left on the board, and at the next 
lesson, which should come on the same day as the first 
lesson, each pupil is called on again to say his own sen- 
tence from the board, and opportunity should be given 
to any one who desires to say some other sentence than 
his own. More sentences are formed about some object 
or its picture, and the reading of these from the board 
closes the lesson. 

Reading without self-consciousness. — Nothing need be 
said to the pupils, for some time, about " reading " ; to 
do so would most probably awaken their self-conscious- 



HO METHOD IN EDUCATION 

ness and inhibit willing and successful effort. Let them 
read before they know it ! They are thus drilled in the 
recognition through the eye, under the stimulus of in- 
terest, of a written form as meaning the same thing as 
something they have said or heard said. 

This drill continues until the recognition becomes in- 
stantaneous, automatic, and extends to a good many 
words. The same words should be used over and over, 
but in many different combinations, in new sentences 
and "stories." 

Making a "reading book." — The sentences and 
stories made by the pupils should be printed on slips of 
uniform size, and used for review lessons. Some school 
authorities are enlightened enough to make an appro- 
priation for the printing of such lessons. If not, they 
may be induced to provide one of the many kinds of 
simple and efficient copying machines now on the 
market, with which any number of copies may be 
made, in either print or script. Such an instrument 
will be found very useful in other branches. 

At all stages of advancement reading is of high value 
in cultivating the imagination ; and even in the primary 
class, whether the reading matter is made by the pupils 
themselves, as just suggested, or books are used, the 
pupils should be given opportunity to draw pictures 
illustrating their ideas of the things read about. Chil- 
dren like to draw, and they should be given every en- 
couragement to use tablet and pencil in objectifying 
the images suggested by their reading lessons. 

The beginning of spelling. — So far nothing has been 
done directly in the way of spelling. But a good deal 
has been done indirectly, by getting the pupils accus- 
tomed to observe word forms ; they have accumulated 



READING 1 1 1 

a stock of visual images of words, and from these they 
must learn to spell, for English spelling can be learned 
only through the eye. 

When a good many words have become readily recog- 
nizable, some of the more familiar ones may occasion- 
ally be written with the letters spaced and diacritically 
marked, and the pupils should be drilled on the names 
and sounds of the letters. The teacher will ask some- 
times for the sounds, sometimes for the names. Later 
the phonic alphabet may be put on the board and left 
there to be referred to as need arises. The movement 
forward now is more rapid, and is analytico-synthetic — 
the analysis of sentences and words into their elements, 
and the synthesizing of these elements into new sen- 
tences and words. 

Sentence method not the most feasible. — The sentence 
method, as outlined above, is not feasible in many 
schools outside the graded systems, as things are at 
present. Usually the teacher is allowed no time for 
work in nature-study and language preliminary to read- 
ing ; he must begin on the first day to teach the little 
people this new art, and it is generally expected, if not 
positively required, that he shall, from the first, use a 
book. To such conditions — and they prevail in the 
great majority of schools — the "word method," or 
some modification of it, as presented in various excellent 
primers, will be found most suited. 

The word method. — The word method differs from 
the sentence method mainly in that single words are 
given at first instead of sentences. This plan has 
in its favor the fact that when the child is learning 
to talk he uses single words, not complete sentences. 
His words are mostly nouns, and he expresses verb 



112 METHOD TN EDUCATION 

ideas by gestures or other movements. Here is a good 
hint to teachers and text-book makers, to plan at first 
for abundant drill on nouns, and to put plenty of move- 
ment into the pictures. 

It may be argued, further, that the word-whole is 
smaller than the sentence-whole and is, therefore, easier 
to recognize and retain. Words, moreover, may be more 
simply pictured than sentences. 

Processes of the sentence method equally usable in the 
word method. — Whenever they can be used, the best 
and livest processes by which the sentence method is 
made most effective will be found fully as good in get- 
ting desirable results from the word method. The 
teacher will use the best that any good method has to 
offer, making for himself an eclectic method, and breath- 
ing into it the breath of his own life. In reading, as 
in everything else, "the letter killeth, but the spirit 
giveth life " ; the live teacher will not permit the letter 
of any method of teaching reading to kill the interest 
of the learner in the thing read. 

Results of the first year's work. — At the end of the 
first year, if the child has been rightly taught, he will 
be able to pronounce clearly and unhesitatingly, at 
sight, the simpler and more familiar words which he 
uses in talking ; he will be able to spell most of them ; 
he will have some skill in writing a good many of them 
on tablet or slate ; and, best of all, he will have caught 
some glimpse of what good things are in store for him 
to enjoy, as soon as he can read easily. 

Value of "mechanics of reading' ' reemphasized. — 
But the learner can take only slight hold upon this 
promise of pleasure to be drawn from printed words, 
unless he can, as far as he has gone, use his reading 



READING 113 

freely as a tool. This he cannot do unless the drill in 
the mechanical elements of reading has been thorough 
and careful. Only through such drill can he escape 
the faults of drawling, stopping to spell words while 
reading, miscalling words, mumbling or moving the lips 
in silent reading, — from all which the world, both in 
and out of school, has suffered enough. But all the 
time the teacher must be on guard against mistaking 
and accepting mechanical reading for mechanical accu- 
racy in reading. 

The ultimate purpose. — The ultimate purpose in read- 
ing is to get thought and inspiration, knowledge and en- 
thusiasm, help and pleasure, from the written or printed 
page. This purpose cannot be effectively realized unless 
the forms of words are readily and automatically recog- 
nized, as the first step toward an appreciation of their 
meaning and value. Such recognition, in the primer, 
must be so ready as to enable the pupil to gather in 
words and phrases ahead of where he is reading. Only 
as this is done, and done more and more easily as the 
reader advances, will he come to interpret with fluency, 
either to himself in silent reading, or to others by read- 
ing aloud. One of many devices that may be effectively 
used to train the eye to prompt recognition of printed 
words is to give the pupils for use at their seats a 
supply of words printed on bits of cardboard, and have 
them build these into sentences. Such an exercise has 
more than one merit to recommend it to a busy teacher. 

Oral reading. — In beginning classes, the reading is 
necessarily done aloud. Here, as elsewhere, expression 
is the teacher's surest test of his own and his pupils' 
work. 

The best standard by which to measure the pupils' 

roark's METH. — 8 



114 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

progress is this definition of good oral reading : Oral 
reading is an interpretation of the author's thought and 
feeling, given in a conversational tone and in the author's 
own language. 

Interpretation. — Interpretation means that the pupil's 
experiences, his knowledge and feeling, are reached by 
the matter of the reading lesson, and that he is con- 
scious of their expression in what the author has written. 

Tone. — A child's ordinary conversational tone may 
be better or worse than the tone in which he reads. 
Usually it is better, but sometimes a pupil is more 
amenable to training in a proper use of the voice in 
reading than in talking. If the child talks better than 
he reads, it is because he feels more vividly what he 
talks about, and can more readily use the oral word 
than the printed one. Whether he talks well or ill — 
as to tone — it is, nevertheless, the highest praise that 
can be given him or his teacher, to say that he reads as 
he talks. The teacher must look after tone, pitch, em- 
phasis, enunciation, in both talking and reading, and 
make improvement in the one help improvement in the 
other. But if the thought and emotion in what is being 
read really have possession of the reader, he will give 
emphasis and inflection naturally, and though not always 
correctly, yet more correctly than by any mechanical 
rules that can be given him. 

The teacher's reading. — Since reading is an art, and 
art is, in the case of children, almost wholly imitative, 
it means much for the progress of beginners if the 
teacher can read well. He should read much to his 
pupils, not merely the exercises which they are to read, 
but stories suited to their age and liking. From such 
reading the pupils will gain much, and their uncon- 



READING 1 1 5 

scious imitation of it will go far toward forming their 
own oral expression. It will be found a fruitful plan 
for the teacher to keep an interesting book (under key) 
in his desk, from which it is understood that he will 
read for the delectation of the pupils, when — and only 
when — they have done excellently in their own reading. 

Many things affect the quality of oral reading. — 
Many things that contribute to good oral reading should 
be cultivated for other purposes as well. The teacher 
should, without special reference to reading exercises, 
train the pupil constantly to right use of the voice, 
proper position of the trunk in sitting and standing, and 
full and deep breathing. All these are of prime impor- 
tance in good oral reading, but they are also funda- 
mentally necessary in themselves. Culture of all the 
faculties of the mind — especially of imagination and 
the feelings — necessarily and strongly influences the 
adequacy of the interpretation in reading. The point 
to be made clear is, that, as oral reading is a form of 
expression, all physical and mental activities are tribu- 
tary to it. 

But oral reading receives too great a proportionate 
share of attention in most schools ; and much of that 
attention is wasted because of too little care given to 
cultivating right habits and methods of silent reading. 

Silent reading. — Silent reading is the adequate inter- 
pretation of the printed page to one's self. One prime 
end of the school's training of pupils is that they may 
use books intelligently. When one can read in the full- 
est and deepest sense, he is potentially in possession of 
all knowledge and quickened by all feeling. 

The learner should begin to form habits of rapid, in- 
telligent, silent reading as soon as he is able to read at 



Il6 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

all. Even in the second or third week of his reading 
experience, the pupil should be tested and trained some- 
times by sentences written on the board, directing him 
to do something ; these he is not permitted to read 
aloud, but is required to do what they direct. 

Training in silent reading. — Occasionally in the 
lower grades, oftener in the higher ones, the teacher 
will have the pupils recite the lesson without reading it 
in class at all. This means that the pupils, under the 
interested and interesting questions of the teacher, dis- 
cuss in their own language " the story " they have read, 
instead of reading it aloud. Only by this plan, varied 
in many ways, can the teacher have any certainty that 
the pupils get the spirit of what is read or look upon 
the reading exercise as anything more than a mere 
lesson to be " said'" perfunctorily. 

ADVANCED READING 

When the pupil has so far mastered the mechanics of 
reading as not to be hampered in his reach after the 
meaning by his inability to recognize printed words at 
sight, he may be classed in advanced reading. 

No sharp demarcation between primary and advanced. 
— Between primary and advanced there can be no 
sharply drawn and distinct line of demarcation ; the 
transition from one to the other is gradual and is hardly 
perceived by the pupil. 

The series of readers only a ladder. — But, as a gen- 
eral rule, it is in the fourth reader that the change is 
made, or should be made. If the teaching and learn- 
ing have been what they should, up to and through the 
fourth reader, there is no use of using " readers " fur- 
ther up in the series. A series of readers is only a lad- 



READING 117 

der by which the pupil climbs from the lower level of 
ignorance of printed and written language to the upper 
level of appreciation of good literature. If he has 
climbed rightly, he will be ready to step from the 
fourth rung into the entrance ways that lead to the 
world's garnered stores of thought and feeling. When 
he has finished the fourth reader, he should be able 
to read with ease and enjoyment much of the choicest 
literature, and should no longer feel — if indeed he 
has ever consciously felt — that he is reading in order 
merely to learn to read. 

Oral reading should be kept up. — Above the fourth 
reader grade, there must still be some oral reading ; but 
it should, for the most part, be made incidental to what 
is now the prime purpose — the development of the 
literary appetite, and, along with that, the cultivation of 
the literary taste. 

Ethical value of reading. — The boy or girl who has 
these — who knows the right things to read and loves 
to read them — is safe, and the school has done for him 
or her the best possible thing. The words of Dr. Hall 
are none too strong when he says, " . . . The school has 
no right to teach how to read, without doing much more 
than it now does to direct the taste and confirm the 
habit of reading what is good rather than what is bad." 

Dangers of reading. — It is really to be preferred that 
the boy should not know how to read, than that he 
should know how, and, through that knowledge, fall 
under the influences of evil books. It is better that the 
girl should grow up ignorant of any art of letters, than 
that her life should be lived distortedly by reason of 
false ideals gained from reading pernicious fiction. 

Accounts may be seen almost daily, of boys and 



Il8 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

young men whose lives are gone fatally awry as the 
result of bad reading, and many a young woman has 
set her feet in the evil path while blinded by the glam- 
our of some subtly vicious story. There is no need of a 
curfew for boys and girls that have been so taught that 
they like good reading, and for whom good reading has 
been provided. Their interests are drawn elsewhere 
than to the streets, and they love other associations bet- 
ter than those of the corner and the alley. 

The largest part of the harm done in the world is 
done by people who have no pleasure in communion 
with good books, and, as a consequence, have but little 
resource within themselves. They therefore have to 
turn mainly to various social ways of spending vacant 
hours, with the inevitable results of wasted time and 
energy, and doing of things that are always found 
for idle hands — as well as idle heads and hearts — 
to do. 

Cultivating literary taste. — It should be apparent 
that the only way to put the pupil under the vivifying 
and saving influence of literature, is to -make him sym- 
pathetically acquainted with good reading matter as 
early, and in as many ways, as possible. As was said 
above, the best is not too good for any grade, selections 
being made, of course, to suit each degree of advance- 
ment. 

The learner can be put in contact with good literature 
in the primer, and the contact may be kept up all the 
way through school and college; but it will, in most 
cases, be a mechanical and lifeless touch unless the 
teacher is so initiated into the sacred rites of literature 
as to fire the pupil with the ardor of a novitiate. No 
one can impart an enthusiasm he does not himself feel. 



READING 119 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

One of the best ways of getting pupils to feel that 
they are reading for some more essential purpose than 
merely to learn to read, is to introduce them early to 
matter outside their readers. 

The value of this supplementary reading has long 
been recognized, and supplementary readers are nearly 
as plentiful as the regular texts. Every educational 
sect has sought, with more or less success, to get its 
own especial hobby ridden under the saddle of supple- 
mentary reading. 

All reading must be good literature. — But the funda- 
mental truth should be kept steadily in view, that noth- 
ing but literature has any claim to a place in a series 
of readers, supplementary or regular. Reading matter 
may be secondarily and incidentally scientific, or geo- 
graphical, or biographical, but it must first be literature. 

The pernicious practice still exists in a good many 
schools of using the United States history as a " read- 
ing book," above the fourth or fifth grade. No surer 
way could be devised for killing the pupil's interest in 
both reading and history. The same may be said of 
any other "readers" that undertake definitely to teach 
other branches than good reading. Literature is old ; 
it is before anything that can be called science. Every 
stage of human progress has found expression in litera- 
ture ; every deep of human feeling and thought has 
called unto other deeps, all down through the fleeting 
ages, in epic and in myth. If the child in his own de- 
velopment repeats that of the race — passing, as an 
individual, through epochs that correspond to the epoch 
of race growth — -then must he find in literature that 



120 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

which he needs to stimulate and nourish him at each 
stage of his own growth. 

Character and use of supplementary matter. — Sup- 
plementary matter should be a little more difficult, and 
somewhat more interesting, than the regular readers, 
grade for grade. It should be used at unexpected 
times, and the reading should often be done at sight ; 
there should, at least, be no preparation made upon 
it out of class. 

Matter suitable for this purpose may be found in 
Andersen's Tales, Gulliver's Travels, Arabian Nights, 
our own American classics, Greek and Roman mythol- 
ogy, Bible literature, and stories of heroes of all times 
and countries. 

When regularly graded supplementary reading mat- 
ter is, for any reason, not at hand, it will be found an 
excellent plan to have each pupil in the class, who can, 
bring from home some book of his own, and read from 
it himself to the class. This puts the reader on his 
mettle, for it is his book and he wants the class to en- 
joy it; it pricks interest with the spur -of novelty and 
unexpectedness ; and it shows every one that there is 
in reading something more to attain than word drawl- 
ing. The teacher will need, naturally, to exercise dis- 
crimination and tact in using reading matter brought in 
by the pupils. Not seldom books will be brought that 
smack strongly of the " yellow-backed " brand of litera- 
ture. Some insight into the pupils' home conditions 
will be afforded, too, and perhaps an occasional oppor- 
tunity of touching their home life with better influences. 

As an item of school management, it would be found 
well worth while for the teachers of a community — dis- 
trict, village, or county — to make some effective modi- 



READING 121 

fication of the " traveling library" plan. Each teacher 
could furnish one book, or more, and at the monthly 
association meetings these could be interchanged. In 
this way a good supply of supplementary reading matter 
could be secured at slight cost, and a nucleus would be 
formed that would easily grow into a valuable neighbor- 
hood circulating library. 

Not the least of the advantages of supplementary 
reading is, that it cannot become stale, if used as sug- 
gested above ; while the regular readers do, because the 
pupil is sure to look through his reader within a few 
hours after he comes into possession of it, studying the 
pictures and reading what he can of the "stories." 
The text thus soon loses its novelty and freshness, and 
with these most of its power to interest. In this fact 
lies one of the strongest arguments for teaching reading 
as outlined in the first part of this chapter, without the 
use of a text. When the sentences and stories are 
developed freshly day by day, the interest is always 
keenly alive, and the learning proportionately rapid. 

READING AS A CENTER OF CORRELATION 

It has already been suggested how nature-study, lan- 
guage drill, and other forms of oral lessons, may be 
made contributory to reading. With even more success 
valuable exercises in these and in many other subjects 
may be correlated around reading. 

Subjects to be correlated with reading. — When the 
pupil is taught to read, he makes a beginning in writing 
and spelling, and receives his first specific training in 
oral expression. Through his reading, even while still 
in the primary stage, he should come to know some- 
what of the grammar of the language ; and, as he 



122 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

advances, should make some acquaintance with biog- 
raphy, history, and geography in its broadest sense. 

Writing and spelling. — Almost as soon as the learner 
can read a word he should also write it. In this writ- 
ing, spelling is, of course, involved. Later, spelling 
becomes a regular drill in connection with the reading. 

Composition. — The "mechanics" of composition — 
capitalizing, punctuating, paragraphing — should be 
almost automatic with pupils in the fourth reader ; and 
this result should be reached mainly through the read- 
ing exercises and practice in sentence making in con- 
nection with them. 

Grammar. — Along with this drill in composition, — 
which should be perfectly free of rules, except such as 
may be easily drawn inductively, by the pupils them- 
selves, from their observation of sentence structure in 
the reading lessons, — there should go much indirect, 
simple, inductive work in grammar. By the time a 
pupil has properly finished the fourth reader, he can 
readily recognize the parts of speech, in their simpler 
constructions, and should know something of sentence 
analysis. 

It is not best, while this sort of incidental work is 
going on, to make any mention, to the pupils, of " com- 
position " or "grammar." There is too apt to be a sort 
of traditional fear of the school work these terms name, 
in the minds of even young pupils. 

Biography, history, geography. — In the later primary 
and in advanced classes, a good deal may be done in- 
cidentally in biography, history, and geography. It is 
not best that the reading matter be specifically biographi- 
cal, or historical, or geographical ; but whenever the liter- 
ature of the reading lesson presents these kinds of facts, 



READING 123 

they should be made to yield their full share of stimulus 
and nutriment. This should be done with especial care 
in descriptive prose and in poetry. The best poetry is 
the poetry of nature, and it is good in direct proportion 
to the truth with which it states, in poetic form, the 
accurately observed facts of nature. 



CHAPTER IX 

SPELLING 

To learn to spell English words is a difficult matter, 
requiring years of effort ; yet there is no test of literacy 
or illiteracy quite so rigidly applied as the test of ability 
to spell. Solecisms of speech are made constantly, on 
the rostrum, in the pulpit, in the press, and are pardoned 
or not noticed ; but let a man commit himself to writing, 
unless he can spell, or blame his misspelled words on 
the typewriter, he has fatally blundered. No one par- 
dons a poor speller. An orthographic slip (in a letter 
or on the printed page) is a personal affront to the 
reader ; it offends the eye even more than an orthoepic 
slip does the ear. 

The spelling of the last generation. — There was a 
widespread belief, some years ago, that modern methods 
had produced poorer spellers than those became who 
used to "line up" under the stiff discipline of the old 
" blue back." There was some good ground for the 
belief, for it is almost inevitable that the reaction 
against any abuse will carry the reform too far. So, 
from overmuch attention to oral, alphabetic spelling, 
the schools swung for a while near the other extreme 
of no definite drill in spelling. On account of this, the 
poor speller is still quite a good deal in evidence. 

What the art of spelling includes. — The art of spelling 
includes more than merely the correct placing of letters 

124 



SPELLING 



125 



in words. To know how to spell is to know not only 
what letters are in a word, and in what order to place 
them, but to know also the phonic value of each letter 
and the symbol (diacritical) of that value, the correct 
division of the word into syllables, on which syllable 
the accent falls, and — by a little extension of the 
subject — something of the derivation and use of 
words. 

Stated somewhat technically, spelling includes orthog- 
raphy, orthoepy, and, to some extent, lexicology. 

Each grade may include all three. — The pupil is con- 
cerned with all three from the time he begins to read ; 
as soon as he can read at all he must begin to learn 
something of orthography, pronunciation, enunciation, 
and the meanings of words. The beginner gets all 
these in his reading lessons, and there he should also 
begin to form the habit of observing word forms. 

The old spelling was ear spelling. — The chief fault 
of the old oral spelling was that it appealed almost 
altogether to the ear ; and the habit thus formed and 
fostered, of spelling a word as it sounds, clings so 
tenaciously that it is no uncommon thing for a pupil, 
used to oral spelling only, to copy a sentence or para- 
graph with book in hand, and misspell several words. 

Drill in orthography must be through the eye. — It 
ought to have been realized much earlier than it was, 
that English can never be spelled by ear. But the old 
schoolmaster knew nothing of " visual images " or " auric- 
ular images," and the adult poor spellers of to-day are, 
at least partly, the result of his ignorance. The one 
fact to keep fixedly in mind, in the teaching of orthog- 
raphy, is that the pupil learns to spell — if he learns 
at all — by forming and retaining accurate visual images 



126 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

of word forms. He must learn orthography almost 
altogether by eye. The teacher's drills in orthography 
must be of a nature constantly to require the pupils 
to observe zvord forms and print them retentively on 
memory. The good speller feels his eye arrested at 
once by a misplaced or incorrect letter in what he is 
reading. 

The orthographic value of reading and writing. — The 
two exercises that afford most abundant opportunity 
for drill in observing forms of words, are reading and 
writing. In the one the word is seen, in the other the 
visual image is reproduced. The justifiable inference 
is, that careful reading and careful writing — both prop- 
erly directed in school — will make good spellers. As 
was seen in the last chapter, these two exercises should 
be carried forward together from the very beginning, 
the child doing his first writing on the day of his first 
reading. 

Phonics should not be first. — Out of all the dust of 
discussion of the subject of spelling, the fact seems 
clearly to emerge, that the learner's first acquaintance 
with words to be spelled should be with letter forms 
and not with letter values. 

Two reasons may be given for this: (i) a drill in 
phonics is too hard for beginners ; (2) beginners do 
not need a knowledge of letter values and their symbols. 

To add a phonic drill to the new and difficult work 
required of a child who is beginning to convert an ear- 
vocabulary into one of the eye is to make the task too 
hard, for pupil or for teacher, or for both. It is demand- 
ing too close a study of arbitrary symbols and the purely 
arbitrary association of these with sounds meaningless 
in themselves. 



SPELLING 127 

Beginners have no use for phonics, because charts, 
primers, and first readers are not printed with diacriti- 
cal marks. The words in these first books are so fa- 
miliar, orally, that the learner knows how to pronounce 
them, if he can recognize them in print, and diacritical 
marks would serve to confuse rather than to aid him. 

A pupil has no real need of a knowledge of diacritical 
marks and their values, until he is advanced enough to 
use a dictionary. But some acquaintance with sounds 
and their symbols will prove convenient even in the 
second reader grade. 

Written spelling the most practical. — The first spell- 
ing a pupil does is, of course, written ; and as almost 
the only practical use he will have for orthography all 
through life will be when he is writing, it seems clear 
that most of his drill in it should be by writing. 

Elementary eye-drill in orthography. — After there 
has been some practice in writing words as wholes, the 
teacher may write on the board, with spaced letters, 
some simple words taken from the last reading exercise ; 
and the pupils will, for several lessons, copy words thus 
spaced, in this way getting more or less clear eye-pic- 
tures of words as made up of separate parts. So far, 
any learning of spelling has been indirect, but none the 
less helpful. 

Memory drill in orthography. — The pupils, by this 
time, will have learned most or all of their letters, inci- 
dentally and indirectly ; and some memory, drill in 
orthography may now be introduced. A word is written 
on the board, with spaced letters, and, after the pupils 
have noted it carefully, it is erased, and they are asked 
to copy it from memory, on blackboard or tablet. 

This work of the children should be carefully watched 



128 METHOD /AT EDUCATION 

by the teacher while it is being done, in order to detect 
and set right any tendency to form letters in wrong 
ways. Beginners, until they are shown how to do, often 
make the loop of the " p " on the down stroke, begin at 
the bottom to make "c," and commit similar blunders 
with other letters, 

Oral spelling. — After the drill just described has con- 
tinued some time — three or four weeks — oral spelling 
from memory should be begun. There need be no oral 
" spelling on the book " at all, except for variety. All oral 
spelling should, at first, be by the names of the letters. 

This oral spelling has its value in all grades ; although 
it alone cannot make good spellers, it can be made to 
help considerably to that end. 

Spelling matches. — Under the stimulus of competi- 
tion, in the old-fashioned spelling matches and other 
forms of "turning down," a pupil's observation of word 
forms is greatly quickened ; and if he misses a word in 
these contests, he will be apt to remember its correct 
spelling as long as he lives. 

For some purposes these older methods cannot be 
improved upon. There is much profit in having one or 
more classes of the more advanced pupils stand in line 
and spell a previously assigned list of words, with " turn- 
ing down " and " going foot " as penalties for errors. 
And the regular monthly spelling match, with its cap- 
tains, its "choosing out," its stubbornly fought contest, 
stimulates the orthographic activity of a whole school, 
even of those pupils who are not engaged in the struggle. 

Properly varied, such work will be found very valua- 
ble in spurring ambition, and in creating an esprit de 
corps of class and school. Everybody will be proud of 
the "good spellers," and be desirous of becoming one. 



SPELLING 12Q 

Pedagogical principles in force. — In conducting such 
exercises, the principles that govern all teaching must 
be observed. Words should be given out quickly, but 
clearly, with distinct enunciation, correct pronunciation, 
and should be given out but once ; nor should any pupil 
have more than one " try " at the same word. 

Value of oral spelling. — The chief good of oral spell- 
ing — next to the verve and spirit of emulation aroused 
by it — is the drill it affords in clear enunciation and 
correct pronunciation. In all oral spelling, special re- 
gard should be had for these two points. The pleasing 
effect of a good voice may be greatly marred by care- 
less enunciation. Pupils should be trained from the 
very first in distinctness of utterance, in giving the 
vowels their full value, with a deep open throat. As 
much emphasis should be put upon clear and well- 
modulated utterance, and upon correctness of pronun- 
ciation, in oral spelling as in reading. 

Phonic spelling. — From about the beginning of the 
fourth reader grade, carefully conducted drills in purely 
phonic spelling should be given, — that is, lists of words 
should be assigned to be spelled only by the sotinds of 
the letters. 

For some time, when this work is first taken up, the 
words should be written on the board by the teacher, 
and the letters marked plainly. As the pupils advance, 
lists of words should be given unmarked, and the pupils 
required to find their correct marking and to spell them 
accordingly. 

The weakness of oral spelling. — People do not go 

through life spelling orally ; the preacher does not spell 

to his flock, nor the lawyer to the jury, nor even the 

teacher to his school. But these and all others have 

roark's meth. — 9 



130 METHOD IiV EDUCATION 

need to write words, and the boy or girl brought up on 
oral spelling alone, will be apt to miss some quite com- 
mon words in writing a simple letter. 

One of the objections to oral spelling, at least in 
advanced classes, is that it is frequently too much 
concerned with "sesquipedalian words"' — like "tran- 
substantiation " and "incomprehensibility" — to the 
neglect of words in everyday use. The long words 
may be well enough for occasional orthographic gym- 
nastics, but they are not often seen in print ; and the 
pupils who are most successful in spelling them orally 
frequently blunder when writing such words as " very," 
"much," "hoping," etc. 

Value of written spelling. — Written spelling gives a 
double opportunity to imprint visual images, and it 
strengthens these impressions through both ear and 
hand. It has the advantage, also, of enabling the 
teacher to test each pupil on every word. 

Written spelling exercises may be greatly varied, and 
much may be done in them besides merely writing a 
list of words with letters correctly placed. Quite fre- 
quently this may be all that is required ; but sometimes the 
exercise should include proper syllabication — an impor- 
tant and rather neglected matter ; sometimes the teacher 
should require all letters to be diacritically marked and 
the accents properly placed ; and at other times account 
should be taken of capitals, hyphens, apostrophes, and 
of everything that helps to make the words. 

Incidental spelling. — The foregoing suggestions, al- 
though mainly intended for the regular drill in spelling, 
will apply as well to the incidental spelling that should 
form a part of nearly every lesson recited. 

Every class a spelling class. — In almost every recita- 



SPELLING 131 

tion there is some work that should be put on the board 
or on the tablets, and the orthography in all written 
work, on whatever subject, in whatever grade, from the 
primary through the university, should be as carefully 
noted and corrected as anything else in the exercises. 
Every class can be made a spelling class, and the pupils 
should understand that they are liable to be called on to 
spell any word in any lesson. Thus they will be led 
to form the habit of close observation of the word forms 
met with in reading or study, — and this is the best way 
to learn English orthography. 

Every book a spelling book. — The readers will natu- 
rally furnish the largest number of words for this inci- 
dental work"; but in geography the supply is almost 
unlimited; and history, physiology, civics, and arith- 
metic afford a great many. Spelling is such an integral 
part of composition and all other forms of written 
language work that it should not be called "incidental" 
in connection with them. 

The proper carrying out of these devices renders a 
spelling book unnecessary ; every book is a spelling 
book. The teacher should have, for his own use, how- 
ever, several up-to-date spellers to save time in making 
out lists of words. 

But no matter how many he uses as aids, he should 
frequently make his own lists of words, to suit each 
grade of pupils and to answer the special purpose he 
may have in view in each case. 

Lists of words should be grouped. — When words are 
given in lists they should usually be grouped on some 
suitable basis of classification. Spelling is almost 
wholly memory work, the recalling of sounds and visual 
images, and memory is greatly aided by association. 



vowel sounds in the words — the whole lists involving 



132 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Sometimes the basis of grouping should be simply 

>wel soi 
short "a 

other vocal value, as the associational characteristic. 
Some excellent drill lists may be made up of words alike 
in sound but different in spelling, or alike in spelling 
but different in pronunciation and meaning. 

For lower grade work lists of a definite number of words 
may be made up from the names of parts of plants, from 
names of farm tools, kitchen utensils, qualities of ob- 
jects, acts performed in various occupations, — and so 
on without limit. 

In advanced classes the lesson may frequently be 
assigned with some indefiniteness, thus: "To-morrow 
we will spell twenty words that are names of things 
bought in a grocery," — or in a hardware store, or by 
the yard, or by dry measure, or that are used in the 
dining room. The idea, of course, is to give practice 
in spelling words in everyday use. 

Reviews. — In spelling, as in any other subject, re- 
views should occur often, and the material for these 
should be made up chiefly of words that have been 
missed in previous oral or written exercises. The 
teacher should make memoranda of these words at the 
time they are missed, and have them in readiness for 
these reviews. 

" Logomachy." — There is one device which maybe 
used with excellent results, from the fourth reader 
grade up, that is so well based upon sound principles as 
to be worth specific mention here. It is the game 
called " logomachy " — a word-fight. It may be varied 
in many ways, but it consists essentially in trying to make 
as many words as possible out of letters printed on 



SPELLING 133 

separate bits of cardboard, which are distributed to 
the players. The play necessitates correct spelling 
and frequent recourse to the dictionary; it arouses 
emulation, and fixes eye-images of words in the 
memory. 

Lexicology. — Toward the latter part of the third 
reader grade, pupils can profit by some drill in the use 
of a dictionary, and this " dictionary drill " should con- 
tinue in various ways through all grades. 

The old plan of using the school dictionary as an 
advanced spelling book, and having the contents spelled 
and defined, word by word, from A to Z, was a peda- 
gogical horror ; the dictionary should be used for what 
it is — a reference book. 

The first drill in its use may well be simply the find- 
ing of words in it. For this purpose, and for all the 
dictionary work in the lower grades, any of the several 
excellent school dictionaries now published will serve 
admirably. In advanced grades and high schools the 
complete dictionaries will be used. 

All new words should be looked up. — The drill should 
not, unless with quite advanced pupils, be upon isolated 
words, assigned merely to get the dictionary used. The 
guiding principle should be : Every new word met with 
in any lesson should be looked up in the dictionary ; 
and often additional information should be sought re- 
garding words already familiar. Only by forming habits 
of word study in accordance with this principle can the 
student's vocabulary be enlarged and enriched, and his 
use of terms become accurate. 

In advanced classes, all that the best dictionary gives 
should be learned about words, — their orthography, pro- 
nunciation, syllabication, etymology (both grammatical 



134 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and philological), definition, illustrations of their use, 
and sometimes their synonyms and antonyms. 

In these drills, attention should be given also to word 
formation, compounding of words, the value of prefixes 
and suffixes, rules of spelling, changes in word fashions, 
provincialisms, etc. All this work with words will be 
found most enjoyable, and fruitful of the culture that 
marks the man of letters. 



CHAPTER X 
OBJECT LESSONS 

Includes more than " nature-study." — As stated in 
Chapter VII., "object lessons" includes more than 
"nature-study," which has of late years almost wholly 
supplanted the older and better term. The name " ob- 
ject lesson" is preferred here, because it helps to call 
needed attention to some kinds of work that should be 
done in all schools, but that are not phases of nature- 
study. In its full meaning the term covers work done 
with objects, in all grades from the kindergarten to the 
laboratory research of the original investigator. 

The several kinds of exercises with objects, suitable 
for the lower grades, may be shown thus : — 

f (i) " Information talks." 
Object lessons ■{ (2) Use of objects to illustrate various branches. 
^ (3) Nature-study (elementary science). 

Each of these, with its variations, has its definite and 
important uses, at least up to, if not through, the high 
school. 

"INFORMATION TALKS" 

Instructing an essential part of teaching. — An essen- 
tial part of teaching is instructing — the direct and out- 
right giving of facts to the learner. Some instructing 
must be done in every subject ; there are facts in every 
branch which the pupil either cannot get by himself at 

l 3S 



136 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

all, or cannot so get without too great waste of time 
and effort. Still, the teacher will do well to remember 
that there is much less instructing than developing and 
training, in good teaching. But there should be some 
definite instruction aside from and outside of the regular 
school branches. 

Information lessons a means of quickening curiosity. — 
The teacher will find information lessons on common ob- 
jects one of the pleasantest and most effective means of 
quickening curiosity — of whetting the appetite to know. 

The purpose is not so much to have the pupils ob- 
serve and find out, as for the teacher, at definite times 
not too frequent, to tell the pupils in the most interest- 
ing way the most interesting facts about common things. 
Such talks will result not only in increased knowledge 
on the part of the pupils, but in a greater desire for 
more knowledge, and a quickening of the acquisitive 
activities. 

For these informal talks the teacher has an unlimited 
range of themes ; the subjects may be chosen from the 
inexhaustible list of manufactured articles, or from 
nature. The exercises may involve, on the part of the 
pupil, the activity of both senses and memory, or of 
memory alone. 

Familiar objects are best. — As a rule, the objects 
chosen should be the most common and familiar things, 
— a drop of water, a bit of coal, a lump of dirt, a lead- 
pencil, a nail, a blade of grass, a bottle, a piece of paper. 
Upon these and hundreds of others as simple and famil- 
iar the live teacher can interest pupils and stir their 
minds to a more strenuous reach after knowledge, doing 
much to arouse the abiding interest in, and love of, knowl- 
edge for its own sake, without which no one can grow. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 3 / 

Common things are not commonplace. — One definite 
purpose of such exercises should be to ground the 
pupils in the conviction that common things are not com- 
monplace, but that each tells a story of human inven- 
tion and skill, of progress and comfort, or is eloquent 
of the divine creative and purposive energy. 

The magazines and papers are sources of abundant 
information on just such things as were mentioned 
above; articles often appear on such subjects as "The 
story of a lump of sugar," " How buttons are made," 
"The uses of waste materials," etc. If the school 
is near a paper mill, an ice factory, a cotton gin, a 
machine shop, or any other sort of manufacturing plant, 
the pupils should be taken to see the work done there. 

Careful preparation necessary. — Such talks as are 
here suggested require most careful preparation by the 
teacher — selection of facts and a study of the clearest 
and most attractive method of presenting them. 

The following illustrations may prove suggestive. 
Suppose the teacher to have selected " A piece of 
paper" as the topic. Without announcing a subject, 
he quietly places a leaf from his scratch-book in view of 
the pupils, and says : — 



Years and years ago, away out on the side of the mountains that 
face the big ocean, a pine tree grew beautifully tall and straight and 
strong. It was just one in a large forest of such trees ; but one day, 
a little while ago, when the wood choppers came that way to fell 
timber to be used in making many things, they picked out this 
splendid tree among the very first. After it was cut down, the long, 
straight trunk was sawed into logs and these were hauled away to 
make lumber, — and we'll have a little story about one of the planks 
some day. But I want to tell you now how part of that tree came 
to be this thin, smooth bit of paper. 



138 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The best parts of what was left of the tree after the logs were cut 
were taken to a factory, and, after being trimmed into proper size, 
were put into a big steel pot with some chemical stuff to soften the 
wood, and cooked with steam for a long time. When the cooking 
was finished and the wood was taken from the pot, it was soft and 
mushy. This pulpy stuff was then run through the proper machines 
and washed and pounded till it was thoroughly clean, and mashed 
till it was soft and thin, just as this paper would be if you should 
soak it and stir it a good while in water. 

This thin pulp was next run out upon a long, wide belt of wire 
netting, so closely woven of fine wire as to be like cloth. Through 
this netting the water drained out of the pulp, and left a sheet of soft, 
wet paper. This was passed carefully through other machines that 
pressed and smoothed and polished it, and at last it was wound 
into a big roll and shipped to another factory, where it was cut into 
small sheets and made into your blank books. 

Now, after you have asked any questions you want to about what 
I have told you, you may write the story on your tablets — write on 
a part of the pine tree how the pine tree came to be paper. 

The questions will come fast enough, and will call 
forth the further information that paper may be made 
from rags, straw, grass, weeds, or anything else that is 
fibrous. The pupils may also learn something of the 
history of paper, and especially its modern uses. 

The teacher's ready ingenuity will find many vari- 
ations and practical applications of the "information 
lesson." It may form the basis of reading exercises, 
drawing lessons, language work, and composition. 

There is no valid objection to making the matter and 
the method of these talks gratify not only the child's 
desire for knowledge, but also his natural liking for 
personifying objects and forces. Some criticism has 
been directed at the "story methods" of elementary 
science, but it seems to be entirely unwarranted, pro- 
vided only that the story be accurately true wherever 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 39 

it touches a fact. The kind of "story" here suggested 
is illustrated in the following : — 

THE WATER-DROP 

Once a water-drop that had traveled a long way through big pipes 
and little pipes, and had rested a while in a high water-tank, found 
himself at last in a very hot place. The little drop didn't know it, 
but he was in the boiler of a locomotive, and there were thousands 
of other drops there too. The big fire under the boiler blazed and 
glowed, and made it so hot for the little drops that they all got to 
dancing and jumping about very excitedly. Presently a great many 
of them, with our water-drop among them, flew into steam, as water- 
drops always do when they get very hot. The water-drops that had 
turned to steam struggled and strained and pushed to get out, but 
the steel boiler held them in. Some of them tried so hard, though, 
that they pushed open a sort of trapdoor in the top of the boiler, and 
rushed out with such a jump and flutter that they scared a horse and 
nearly made him run away, and frightened a poor old lady in the 
railway station so that she clapped her hands over her ears and 
cried out " Gracious ! " 

But our little water-drop didn't get out through the trapdoor. 
While he was struggling and pushing he suddenly felt the other 
water-drops — steam-drops they were now — rush forward, and he 
rushed with them, hard as ever he could, and found himself in a 
tight box, sure enough, where he was squeezed harder than ever, 
so hard, indeed, that he felt he could not stand it a second longer. 
He was in the steam-chest of the locomotive and was helping to push 
against the whole weight of the train. 

All at once the squeezing stopped, and away the steam went, 
just flying out of the escape pipe with a hearty " chuff" of satisfac- 
tion at being free again. 

As soon as our water-drop got outside into the cool, fresh air, he 
began to feel less excited and to gather himself together. As the 
train rushed on, he and his companions were left floating in air, in 
a beautiful, rolling mist. And the sunshine flashed through them 
and made a delicate little rainbow, so that some children whose way 
home from school was by the railway, laughed and called to one 
another to look quick, and clapped their hands in fine humor. 



140 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

But the little vapor-drop drifted away into the evening shadows, 
and kept getting cooler and cooler all night, until at last he gathered 
himself gently about the tip of a flower petal, and when morning 
came there he hung, a shining drop of dew, full of dancing, flashing 
light, and as beautiful as he had been useful. 

Some day I will tell you how the water-drop got into the great 
wide ocean, and helped to do some more good work. 

USING OBJECTS ILLUSTRATIVELY 

It was suggested some pages back that the elemen- 
tary and fundamental facts of every branch were 
material for acquisition. The pupil should thoroughly 
learn these facts and the work should be illustrated 
and made concrete by objects. Even in advanced 
classes every subject should be well illustrated objec- 
tively. This is the purpose of laboratories, of the grow- 
ing use of the stereopticon in schools and colleges, and 
of all other apparatus. 

Illustrative methods of objective oral drill in the 
beginnings of the several school branches will be 
found in the discussion of these branches in later 
chapters. 

NATURE-STUDY 

The teacher must have accurately defined and clearly 
outlined in his own mind very much that it is not at 
all expedient for him formally to define or outline for 
his pupils. This is especially true of nature-study work. 
Its fundamental purposes, its various phases, and its 
methodology must constitute a thoroughly assimilated 
part of the teacher's equipment, or nature-study will 
surely degenerate into a mere perfunctory exercise 
about things, instead of being a delightful learning of 
things at first hand. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 4 1 

Main divisions of nature-study. — There are two 
rather clearly discriminated divisions of natural science 
study, that are apparent all the way from the primary 
work up. These are the observational and the ex- 
perimental. 

The observational sciences are Botany, Geology, 
Zoology, Meteorology, and Astronomy ; the experi- 
mental sciences are Physics and Chemistry. This 
classification should be borne in mind by the teacher, 
whether he has work done in a few only or in all 
these subjects, in the chart grade or in the univer- 
sity. 

The distinction here drawn does not mean that 
observation is not involved in the experimental sci- 
ences ; it means only that, in these, experimentation 
must usually precede observation, while in the ob- 
servational sciences there can be but little if any 
experimentation. 

Relative value of the two kinds. — It will probably 
be found that, as a rule, such work as can profitably 
be done in the elementary grades in the experimental 
sciences is more difficult, generally somewhat less 
interesting to the pupils, less adapted to the culture 
of the aesthetic and ethical feelings, and more adapted 
to the exercise of the reflective powers, than is that 
in the observational sciences. In observation exer- 
cises the questions are : What ? When ? Where ? 
and quite often, also, Why ? In experimental work 
the main questions are : Why ? and How ? Work in- 
volving many whys should come later than exer- 
cises that do not call out the specific activity of the 
judgment. 

Elementary science must be simple. — Inexperienced 



142 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

teachers need in no wise be deterred from under- 
taking elementary science work, by the array of 
apparently formidable names in the classification 
given above. The simplest objects and the simplest 
phenomena will usually be most illustrative and use- 
ful. The parts and shapes of leaves, their autumn 
coloring, the rising of sap, the structure of buds, the 
sprouting of seeds — things the child sees, perhaps, 
every year, but rarely observes — afford rich material 
for work in botany. The flight and song of birds, 
their nesting habits, their food; the peculiarities and 
uses of domestic animals ; the insects that are useful 
and those that are obnoxious to man, — all offer in- 
exhaustible opportunities for zoological study. 

Physics includes such facts as . that water wets 
paper, is absorbed by a brick, rolls in drops over a 
dusty floor, and evaporates from the vase of flowers 
on the teacher's desk ; and such facts are essentially 
as important as the latest discoveries in electrical 
science. There is as much chemistry in the fire that 
warms the room, in the rust on the boys' knives, in 
the bread the children eat for lunch, and in the water 
they drink, as in the most recent achievements of 
chemical experts. 

Principles and illustrations given. — Even if it were 
desirable to do so, space is lacking to give a detailed 
outline of the character and amount of the work to be 
done in each grade. An attempt is made only to sug- 
gest certain principles and facts that should guide the 
work in all grades, and to give a few specific illustra- 
tions of the manner of handling those subjects in which 
work can best be done. 

(i) For nature-study to be effective the pupils must 



OBJECT LESSONS 143 

come into tmreserved and interested contact with nature. 
They must observe and experiment for themselves, at 
first hand. Nature-study must never be allowed to 
degenerate into a mere parroting about things. 

(2) Accuracy and completeness of observation are the 
first ends to be sought. Others should be kept in view, 
but these two must be first, in order to secure the others. 
The senses must give and the memory hold correct im- 
pressions and many of them, in order to give imagina- 
tion and judgment any work worth while. Nature-study 
must train all the senses — smell, hearing, and taste, as 
well as those that usually receive most attention. 

(3) All work in elementary science should at first be 
qualitative rather than quantitative. The value of quan- 
titative work lies in exactness of measurement, and such 
exactness involves a carefulness in judging which should 
not be required of beginners. 

(4) The work throughout must be so planned that 
the pupil shall come to see something of unity in 
nature, in the great diversity of things. By skillful 
direction and judicious questioning the teacher must 
bring the pupil to see for himself the distinctions 
between organic and inorganic, vegetable and animal, 
physical and chemical ; and, as advancement is made 
in power of observation and comparison, finer and finer 
distinctions of function and structure will be perceived 
and enjoyed. 

(5) The teacher must have the true inqiciring spirit 
and an overflowing love of nature and her truth. Only 
if he have these can he impart them to his pupils, and 
only through these can he be interested and sympathetic 
with the pupils' efforts to find out for themselves what 
may be already perfectly familiar to him. 



144 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

(6) Pupils will need occasionally to be quickened into 
active questioning by skillful questions from the teacher. 
It is not enough to place the pupil among the objects 
to be observed and tell him to "look and see." By 
artful suggestion or stimulating question, he must be 
made to see that there is something to see, or a yellow 
primrose will be to him a yellow primrose and nothing 
more. 

(7) Remembering that the commonest facts of the 
child's everyday experience afford the best material for 
nature-study, the teacher must carefully avoid both 
telling him what he already knows, as if it were new 
knowledge, and setting him to observe what he may 
have already observed many times. It is the stimulus 
of surprise at finding the new in the familiar — and the 
familiar in the new — that gives zest to investigation in 
any stage of science. The constant aim of the teacher 
must be to get the pupils to see in the common things 
around him what he had not seen before, though he 
may have had his eyes upon them hundreds of times. 

(8) Nature-study should be made to supply the ma- 
terial for much other work. It is a valuable core of 
concentration. Drawing and modeling should be a 
part of almost every exercise in nature-study. Not only 
does the hand greatly help the eye to see, but it also 
helps the memory to retain. The facts acquired should 
undergo some degree of assimilation — should be acted 
upon by judgment and imagination ; the facts and their 
relations should often be treated as material for expres- 
sion by drawing, modeling, telling, and writing ; and the 
high cBstlietic and ethical value of nature-study should 
be constantly made manifest. Nature-study has an 
especially rich character-building content. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 45 

LESSON PLANS 

The following plans are designed to illustrate both the 
general principles of method that have been laid down 
and the specific method of nature-study exercises. They 
are, of course, in the details, to be taken by the teacher 
rather as suggestions than as rules. 

The principle that should guide in the selection of 
material is the analytico-synthetic, the one based on the 
fact that the natural movement of the child's mind in 
learning is from the whole to the parts. And the cau- 
tion that goes with that principle must be here care- 
fully observed — that a whole should be selected suited 
to the advancement of the pupil. 

First Lesson on Plants 

I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) Training in analytic observation of a plant as a whole. 

(2) Teaching names of the five principal parts of a plant. 

(3) Teaching the essential functions of these parts. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The teacher brings into school in the morning, or after 

some recess, a freshly pulled plant — any simple way- 
side weed, in preference to a cultivated flower. A 
plant should be selected with both flower and fruit, 
or seed, upon it. 

(2) When the little people, who should not have been told 

what was coming, are called up, the teacher, holding 
up the plant, asks, " What is this " ? The answers will 
be various, several pupils saying it is a weed, some call- 
ing it by its common name, others, attracted by the 
bloom, saying it is a flower. It is pretty certain that 
no one will call it a plant ; and if the teacher can, in 
a few seconds, question the children into using the 
term "plant" it is best to do so, otherwise, he simply 
roark's meth. — 10 



146 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and quietly says, "It is a plant/' and immediately 
asks the pupils to name some other plants. 

(3) Beginning with the root, the teacher asks what it is, then 

the stem, or stalk, next the leaves, then the flower and 
fruit. All country children and most city children 
will be able to name these correctly and instantly. 

(4) Beginning again with the root, the teacher asks the use 

of each part. Few children will be able to give good 
answers for all the parts, but from the whole class 
sufficiently correct replies may be drawn. 

(5) To close the lesson the teacher says, " To-morrow, each 

of you bring me a plant with a root like this." 

Another lesson may be on leaves. 

Lesson on Leaves 
I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) Training in observation of form, size, and structure. 

(2) Incidental teaching of the technical name of some part 

of a leaf or some kind of leaves. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) Tell the pupils to gather, as they come to school the 

next morning, three or four kinds of leaves from 
plants, bushes, or trees along the way, and to gather 
two or three leaves of each kind. 

(2) When the leaves are brought, the teacher mixes them 

up, and then gives five or six, or more, to each pupil. 

(3) Then the pupils are told to sort each his own pile of 

leaves, putting those that are alike together. It will 
be found that the pupils will sort by different bases 
of classification ; one will arrange his leaves according 
to size, another according to color, another according 
to shape. It would be remarkable if any one, in this 
first test, arranged his leaves according to any charac- 
teristic of structure. 

(4) When the leaves are arranged the teacher looks quickly 

at each pupil's results, and announces, clearly and 
quickly, on what basis each one has arranged his 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 47 

leaves, as, " Henry has put his gre'en leaves together 
and his yellow ones to themselves " ; " Sara has put 
all her little leaves in one pile and her big ones in 
another," etc. Then he asks the class which is the 
best way to sort the leaves, and, if possible, by quick 
and skillful asking, not letting interest flag, he brings 
out the idea that the leaves would better be classified 
according to shape and structure. He illustrates, with 
leaves in hand, the difference between simple and com- 
pound leaves, and immediately asks the pupils to 
arrange their leaves, putting the simple ones together 
and the compound ones to themselves. 
(5) The lesson is closed by the teacher's telling the children 
to bring him to-morrow, each one of them, a compound 
leaf. As the pupils go to their seats, a leaf is given 
to each one to draw. 

Substance of other lessons on leaves. — In other les- 
sons on leaves, the pupils may be led to classify them 
according to tip, base, margin, stem, and shape of 
the whole leaf. Such terms as acute, obtuse, cordate, 
entire, serrate, petiole, petiolate, ovate, may be learned 
objectively, and applied in future work. The work 
should not for an instant degenerate into a learning of 
names for the sake of the names ; the purpose all the 
time is the cultivation of observation in perceiving the 
differences of form, which are signified by the names. 

Function. — In all nature-study much attention must 
be given to function. The pupils should be set to find- 
ing out as much as they can for themselves the uses of 
things. A comparison of the upper and under surfaces 
of leaves, and the noting of the moisture collected on 
the inside of a glass inverted over a small growing plant 
— like the moisture of the breath condensed on a 
window pane — should do much to teach the use of the 
leaf as a breathing organ. 



148 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The horizontal position of leaves on trees and plants 
will readily be perceived as the best for giving shade ; 
and the value of shade to the tree or plant is a matter 
of direct observation and inference. 

The heaps of decayed and decaying leaves in the 
woods will suggest the value of mulch and methods of 
soil enrichment. What leaves are used as food by 
animals and man, how they are prepared, and how they 
may be protected against the ravages of insects, should 
be studied as opportunity offers. Such work is the 
beginning of economic botany. 

Especially should the aesthetic function of leaves be 
considered, how they stimulate and delight and satisfy 
the sense of beauty, by their soft greenery in spring, by 
their heavy masses and banks of foliage in summer, and 
by their splendid color effects in autumn. 

Flowers should be studied. — But while leaves are 
being observed, attention should not be given to them 
alone ; a study of other parts of plants may go on con- 
currently. 

Autumn flowers are abundant and 'beautiful ; and 
because of their abundance, beauty, and variety, they 
are better for nature-study work, in most parts of this 
country, than the flowers of spring. 

Technical names. — In the study of flowers, as in all 
nature-study, technical terms should be learned when 
needed to name a concept. There is nothing at all 
inherently difficult in the words "calyx," "sepals," 
" stamens." The only point to be guarded is that no 
term should be used until the pupils know by actual ob- 
servation what tiling it names ; and when they do know 
the thing it is natural and easy for them to learn its cor- 
rect name. A technical name should be learned much 



OBJECT LESSONS \ 49 

as the name of a new pupil is, by the teacher's simply 
calling the name as occasion arises. The teacher does 
not stand a new boy before the class, and say, " This is 
Henry White ; " neither need he pluck off a leaf of the 
calyx and say, "This is a sepal." If he uses technical 
names simply, naturally, and correctly, throughout the 
science work, the pupils will learn them as readily and 
with nearly as little effort as they learn one another's 
names. 

Subject-matter of lessons on flowers. — Exercises on 
flowers should be planned to cover such points as the 
parts, shape, and color, time of blooming, duration of 
bloom, a little about fructification, and the uses of the 
flower. 

After the observational powers have been trained 
somewhat by a study of the more attractive parts of 
plants, attention may be directed to the roots. Lesson 
plans should include where and how the root grows, 
how it penetrates and loosens the soil, and what 
roots and root products are used as food for animals 
and man. 

Fruits and seeds. — The study of fruits and seeds will 
prove delightful and profitable in any school and with 
any grade of pupils. The forms of fruits, their color, 
taste, odor, the times of their maturity, the ways in 
which they are used ; the forms of seeds, their modes of 
distribution, their uses, how they sprout, — all afford the 
richest and most abundant material for many lessons of 
high disciplinary and informational value. 

Clay modeling. — In connection with the study of 
fruits and seeds, much can be done to cultivate the 
pupils' perception of form, and at the same time satisfy 
their natural desire to do and to make, by having them 



150 METHOD W EDUCATION 

model fruit and seed forms in clay, or similar plastic 
material. 

Plants should be studied as individuals. — But it is 
not enough to study plants and trees with reference 
only to their parts and uses, or their aggregate effects 
in making landscape. They should be studied as indi- 
viduals, almost as personalities of continuous life. Their 
individual natures, their habitat, which bloom first in 
the year, which last, which most continuously, — all 
should be determined by observations made upon the 
same specimens, week after week. 

Roots. — The life of some plants may be traced 
from the seed up. This may be well done in the 
winter, by having the pupils plant seeds, at home or 
at school, in boxes, and observe the changes from the 
time the seeds first begin to swell. 

The pupils of sufficiently advanced grade may be di- 
vided into groups at the beginning of the term, and to 
each group may be assigned a tree, a clump of weeds, a 
thicket, a tangled fence-corner, or a tuft of grass. They 
should make careful observations upon -the growth and 
changes in the objects of their study, on the animal life 
harbored by them, their individual characteristics, etc., 
and should report and record these observations accu- 
rately, at stated periods. Such study may go on profit- 
ably at all times of the year, in winter as well as at other 
seasons. 

This plan, carried out in the spirit rather than in 
the mere letter, will be found one of the most effective 
for awakening and sustaining such interest, and for giv- 
ing such familiar acquaintance with nature, as will make 
the student feel on good terms with every wayside weed, 
and will enable him through all his life to enjoy the 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 5 1 

companionship of the myriad forms of mute life to be 
found everywhere. 

The organic and the inorganic. — As the lessons so far 
suggested are developed there will be various oppor- 
tunities for observing the differences between the 
organic, as illustrated by the growing plants, and the inor- 
ganic, as illustrated by the rocks and soil. Through the 
noting of these differences a beginning may be easily 
made in geology. 

Geology. — Much less can be attempted and success- 
fully carried out, in the average school, in geology than 
in botany. The opportunities for actual observations of 
a kind suited to pupils below the high school are nec- 
essarily somewhat limited — except in a few favored 
localities — and the work must, therefore, be to a con- 
siderable extent informational. 

Some of the most important facts can, however, be 
learned by direct observation. 

A Lesson on Soil 

I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) Training in the observation of the position, structure, and 

decomposition of rocks. 

(2) To show the relation of the organic to the inorganic. 

(Training of assimilative powers.) 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The teacher, on some of his own " walks abroad," selects, 

not far from the schoolhouse, a bank, or ledge, with a 
marked outcrop of crumbling rock, partially covered 
with soil and growing vegetation. 

(2) On some fit occasion the pupils are taken to this place, 

preferably without being told beforehand what for. 

(3) Stopping at the place selected, the teacher may simply 



152 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

ask the pupils to observe carefully the ledge and its 
surroundings, and tell what they think is worth telling 
about it. Trained by this time to look closely, they 
may be able to see for themselves some essential facts 
— the " layers " of the rock, its breaking off, the crum- 
bling of the pieces, the rotting leaves mixed with the 
crumbled rock, and the growing plants with their roots 
fixed in this soil. 

(4) If necessary — and it doubtless will be — several trips 

may be made to the ledge, in order to have all these 
facts observed and put into proper order and relation. 
The teacher gives the pupils some other facts about 
the formation of rocks, their composition, and how they 
were deposited in the ancient seas, and helps in draw- 
ing the inference that the soil everywhere is made of 
decomposed rock and rotted organic matter. 

(5) The series of observations on the rocky ledge, and the 

talks given by the teacher should at last develop the 
idea that the difference between the inorganic rock 
and the organic plants growing upon it is life; that 
the inorganic is built into the organic only as the 
result of the presence and activity of the vital factor. 



Other lessons in geology. — Other lessons in geology 
would include some study of the different kinds of soil, 
clayey, sandy, loam, and pure humus ; of the different 
kinds of rocks, limestone, sandstone, chert, flint ; of cave 
formation (easily illustrated, in the absence of caves, by 
the action of acidulated water on a piece of limestone) ; 
of wind and water erosion and delta formation ; and, if 
the region affords specimens, of fossils. 

Zoology. — In following out the lines of observation 
already indicated, many specimens of animal life will be 
seen, and some specific work can be done in studying 
them and their most evident relations to the other facts 
of nature. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 5 3 

A Lesson on the Grasshopper 
I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) Training in observation of insect characteristics. 

(2) Showing essential differences between invertebrate and 

vertebrate animals. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The pupils, at the teacher's request, bring in some grass- 

hoppers. 

(2) The teacher asks the pupils to look at their grasshoppers 

and name the different parts or organs. The pupils will 
readily enough name " legs,' 1 " head," " tail," " wings, 1 ' 
"feelers." 

(3) Then the teacher has the legs counted, asking whether 

they are on the thorax or the abdomen, pointing to 
each part as he names it. 

(4) After directing observation to the wings, both closed and 

extended, the length, shape, and rough " shanks " of 
the hind legs, the antennae, etc., he asks suddenly and 
interestedly, "Where is the grasshopper's backbone?" 
With the answers and suggestions received he builds 
the idea in the pupils' minds of invertebrate and verte- 
brate animals, and asks that several of each kind be 
named. 

Further suggestions. — Additional lessons should in- 
clude a comparison of the grasshopper with the cricket, 
the katydid, the housefly, the bee, and other insects. 
Ants, especially, furnish material for a long series of 
careful observations. 

In the country, material suitable for zoological study 
is as abundant and varied as that for botanical study. 
In the city, of course, neither kind of material is as 
plentiful as in the country ; but there is enough for 
some thorough work. In fact, scarcity of material is 
rather an aid than otherwise to thoroughness ; for what 



1 54 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

there is must be more closely observed, and utilized 
for as many lessons as possible. 

General plan of the work. — In zoology, as in botany, 
a regular order of observation should be followed to 
secure the best results. The marks and characteristics 
of the individual specimen ; the marks of the genus, or 
order ; the life changes, as, in the case of insects, from 
Qgg through larva and pupa to imago ; the food of dif- 
ferent species, and how it is obtained; the habitat, or 
range ; and especially the use or disadvantage to man, — 
all these should be studied, and in about the order here 
indicated. 

Throughout all the work the teacher must hold fast 
the purpose of leading the pupils to see for themselves, 
to be sure of their facts, first-hand. 

Making collections. — The pupils should be encour- 
aged to make both individual and class collections of 
specimens to be mounted and kept; but "collecting 
specimens " must not be allowed to become an end in 
itself. 

Thorough observation should be insisted upon as 
precedent to " collecting," and no specimen should be 
admitted to the permanent class collection which (i) has 
not been well studied by all the class ; (2) is not a good 
type of its species, or genus ; (3) has not been carefully 
prepared and mounted by the pupil contributing it. 

Meteorology. — A phase of nature-study for which op- 
portunity is to be had anywhere, and which is of great 
value in training the pupils to observe, is meteorology — 
a study of weather and climate. 

Children can, in the second and third year of school, 
learn the different kinds of clouds and their names — 
cirrus, cumulus, nimbus, stratus. In case a barometer 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 5 5 

is not at hand, they can easily learn to judge approxi- 
mately of barometric conditions by the behavior of 
smoke and fogs. 

Daily observations to be made and recorded. — Observa- 
tions on the sky, temperature, direction of wind, rain, or 
snowfall, should be made twice every day and recorded 
on the blackboard, in permanent blanks ruled for that 
purpose. It is well to have the observations copied at 
the close of the day into a record book. 

Weather maps, directions for making observations, 
and blanks for recording them, may be obtained upon 
application to the Weather Bureau at Washington ; and 
at a small cost any school can secure the necessary 
instruments, and be recorded as a voluntary station in 
the Weather Service. 

Observations of special periods. — In addition to the 
regular daily observations, special note should be made 
of certain climatic and weather periods — equinoctial 
phenomena, longest and shortest days, totals of cloudy 
days and of bright days in each month, first snowfall, 
first frost, first freeze, and any unusual or peculiar 
weather conditions. Attention can very profitably be 
given to the moon's phases and appearance, and to the 
innumerable local " weather signs," — if for no other 
reason than to aid in the outrooting of many silly neigh- 
borhood superstitions, and in the verification of such 
" weather sayings " as rest upon a sound basis. 

Nature-study must be unified. — Hardly too much 
stress can be laid upon the need and value of planning 
and using nature-study, particularly the observational, so 
that as the pupil progresses he will realize the unity and 
continuity underlying all that he sees. It is not difficult 
to lead pupils whose observation has been well directed, 



156 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

to grasp together, into a true correlation, the facts that 
plants need air, sunshine, and water ; that they must 
have soil to grow in ; that this soil is made of crumbled 
rock and rotted organic matter ; that animals require air, 
sunshine, and water, and depend upon plants, or other 
animals, for food. 

A deeper unity still. — But there is a deeper unity 
still, a spiritual one, which underlies and informs that 
spoken of above, and works itself out in all nature, in 
the highest function that nature, as related to man, can 
have — the aesthetic and ethical function. 

The scientist may have an adequate rational compre- 
hension of the parts that air and vapor, sky and earth, 
trees and rocks, streams and flowers, play as components 
of a natural landscape ; but, after all, the landscape must 
appeal for the truest and finest appreciation of its highest 
and most spiritual function — that of beauty — to other 
faculties than the understanding. It is quite as well 
that a "yellow primrose should be a yellow primrose 
and nothing more" to the one who looks at it, as that 
it should be merely Primula vulgaris, and nothing more. 
Not only should the beauty of color and form in indi- 
vidual specimens of plants, animals, or crystals make its 
successful appeal to the student, but the pupils should 
learn also to recognize and appreciate the harmony of 
the forms and colors that make up a landscape. Even 
quite young pupils may easily learn to find the best views 
in the vicinity of the school or their homes, to take pride 
in them, and, when possible, to preserve and improve 
them. 

Teacher must be an observer and lover of nature. — To 
make his work effective, the teacher must not only be a 
close and constant observer of out-of-door nature, train- 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 5 7 

ing by use his own eye, and ear, and nose, to know and 
enjoy, but he must also saturate himself in the best liter- 
ary interpretations of nature. He should observe, and 
then read, — read Thoreau, Emerson, Ruskin, Tennyson, 
Wordsworth, James Thomson, Joaquin Miller, Maurice 
Thompson, Lanier, Hayne, Burroughs, Grant Allen, — 
study them, and compare what they saw and the way 
they saw it with what he sees and the way he sees it. 

Literature in nature-study. — And having filled him- 
self with this humanizing and poetic element of science, 
(it is science, for the great poets of nature are the most 
accurate of observers, and the final test of poetry is 
truth), he must give to his pupils to taste of this reveal- 
ing draught. He should read to the lower grades and 
read with the more advanced ones. 

From even the masterpieces of literature interpretative 
of nature, it will be found that pupils of all grades are 
able to gain as much, proportionately to their power, as 
they were able to get from their study of nature. It is 
not expected that they shall see in a plant as much 
as the trained botanist ; neither will they get from a poem 
or an essay as much as the literator. But we have them 
observe the plant as well as they are able, and should 
have them also enjoy the literature to the limit of the 
same measure. By all effective means they must be 
brought to see through things to the spiritual essence of 
things, realizing that 

" The earth is crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God." 

Quotations and References 
The following quotations and references are given by 
way of suggestions, and in the hope that they may tempt 



158 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

the teacher to read widely and select bountifully both 
for himself and his pupils. Necessarily, the selection 
of what is suited for use with the pupils must be deter- 
mined by the teacher, and will vary according to the 
special subject studied, the capabilities of the pupils, 
and the local environment. 

The teacher should at least read for himself, outdoors 
if possible, Thomson's " Seasons," Lanier's " Hymns of 
the Marshes," Ruskin's "The True and the Beautiful," 
Thompson's " By-ways and Bird-notes," Thoreau's 
"Walden" and "Excursions in Field and Forest," 
Burroughs' "Winter Sunshine," Miller's " Songs of the 
Sierras " and " Songs of the Sun-lands," and the nature 
poems of Lowell, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Keats. 

Below are some selected quotations embodying the 
idea that nothing in nature is commonplace, however 
common it may be, and that the interpreter of beauty 
finds beauty in everything. 

" Give me, dear Lord, Thy magic common things, 
Which all can see, which all may share. 
Sunlight and dewdrops, grass and stars and sea, 
Nothing unique or new, and nothing rare." 

— Spectator. 

" Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day 
and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by 
clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent 
boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is 
danger, and awe, and love, there is beauty, plenteous as rain, shed 
for thee. . . ." — Emerson. 

" If I could put my words in song 
And tell what's there enjoyed, 
All men would to my gardens throng, 
And leave the cities void." 

— Emerson. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 59 

" The black eclipse of barren, grainless fields, 
Dashed 'neath the heavy-laden cloud ; 
The vail uplifted to the hard wind yields ; 
The lowing herds the hedgerows crowd, 
And shiver in the fields unplowed." 

— Gross. 



Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense, 
Contests with stolid vehemence 
The march of culture, setting limb and thorn 
As spikes against the army of the corn. 

u There, while I pause, my fieldward faring eyes 
Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise, 
Of inward dignities 

And large benignities and insights wise, 
Graces and modest majesties. 
Thus, without theft, I reap another's field ; 
Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield, 
And heal my heart with quintuple crops concealed." 

— Lanier. 

As much as possible of the work in nature-study must 
— let it be urged again — go on out-of-doors ; and the 
very first exercises should seem to the pupils more as 
pleasant walks and outings than as any kind of lessons. 
Their appreciative attention should be called to the 
landscape as a whole, they should be led to feel the 
general out-of-door effect in a way they never felt it 
before. The following quotations are in harmony with 
what may be seen in the autumn : — 

" The dead grass whispers of the long, long drouth ; 
The tall, reproachful weeds are brown and dry ; 
The white clouds rising from the balmy south 
Go onward in their journey through the sky. 



160 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

" The mullein stalks, disconsolate and lean, 
Look idly on their shadows all the day ; 
Poor lingering ghosts that haunt the changing scene 
Where summer's silent feet have passed away." 

— Burns Wilson. 

" When the maple turns to crimson 

And the sassafras to gold ; 
When the gentian's in the meadow, 

And the aster on the wold ; 
When the noon is lapped in vapor, 

And the night is frosty-cold ; 

When the chestnut-burs are opened, 

And the acorns drop like hail, 
And the drowsy air is startled 

With the thumping of the flail, — 
With the drumming of the partridge 

And the whistle of the quail : 

" Through the rustling woods I wander, 
Through the jewels of the year." 

— Taylor. 

" October turned my maple's leaves to gold, 

The most are gone now ; here and there one lingers : 
Soon these will slip from out the twigs' weak hold, 
Like coins between a dying miser's fingers." 

— Aldrich. 

There is literature for every season, for every month. 
As the later months of the year draw on, teacher and 
pupils may look for what is described in these : — 

" See yonder leafless trees against the sky, 
How they diffuse themselves into the air, 
And, ever subdividing, separate 
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs, 
As if they loved the element, and hasted 
To dissipate their being into it." 

— Emerson. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 6 1 

" The beech is bare, and bare the ash, 
The thickets white below ; 
The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache, 
He cannot sing for snow. 

" The body-guard of veteran pines, 
A grim battalion stands ; 
They ground their arms, in ordered lines, 
For Winter so commands.' 1 

— Taylor. 

" Now, with wild and windy roar, 
Stalwart Winter comes once more, — 
O'er our roof-tree thunders loud, 
And from edges of black cloud 
Shakes his beard of hoary gold, 
Like a tangled torrent rolled 
Down the sky-rifts, clear and cold." 

— Hayne. 

As life begins to renew itself under a northward sun, 
the beauty that unfolds day by day has a sympathetic 
interpreter in every poet ; and much of the finest prose 
is filled with the inspiration of it. In fact, the writers 
whose work, in any form, is, and will be, most perma- 
nent are those who have been most sensitive to Nature's 
moods and aspects, and who have succeeded in putting 
her beauty into their words. 

" Blue, full of joy, the sky was, and the sun 
Had turned the maple-buds to amber tassels ; 
The robin, at the dawn, had sung ; hard by 
Upon the elm, the blackbird's welcome cry 
Proclaimed dear Spring's sweet coquetries begun : — 
When lo! the Wind's loud trumpet called his vassals 
To rear his hasty temples — blurred and gray — 
And fan the snowflakes forth in white dismay." 

— Burns Wilson. 

roark's METH. — II 



l62 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

" Sing, while the maple's deepest root 
Thrills with a pulse of fire 
That lights its buds. Blow, blow thy tender flute, 
Thy reed of rich desire ! " 

— Maurice Thompson. 

" Spring is strong and virtuous, 
Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, 
Quickening underneath the mold 
Grains beyond the price of gold." 

— Emerson. 

" I heard the woodpecker pecking, 
The bluebird tenderly sing ; 
I turned and looked out of my window, 
And lo, it was spring! 

" A breath from tropical borders, 

Just a ripple, flowed into my room, 
And washed my face clean of its sadness, 
Blew my heart into bloom.'" 

— Maurice Thompson. 

" The kingfisher is a dash of bright blue in every choice bit of 
brook-side poetry or painting ; he is a warm fragment of tropical life 
and color left over from the largess bestowed upon our frigid world 
by one of those fervid periods of ancient creative force so dear to the 
imagination, and so vaguely limned on the pages of science. . . . 
Plash! A sudden gleam of silver, amethyst, and royal purple, a 
whorl as of a liquid bloom on the water, rings and dimples and 
bubbles, and in the midst of it all, the indescribable sound from the 
smitten stream, its one chord rendered to perfection." 

— Maurice Thompson. 

" From the distant tropic strand, 
Where the billows, bright and bland, 

Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint undertune, 
From its fields of purpling flowers 
Still wet with fragrant showers, 

The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of 
June." 

— Hayne. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 63 

A few other quotations are given, to illustrate the 
richness of the literary material which is at the service 
of the teacher who desires to correlate nature-study and 
literature, and to show his pupils what close students of 
nature the best English and American writers have been. 

A wise use of such material may easily lead the pupils 
who like literature but do not like nature-study to see the 
value of the latter; and may serve also to bring those 
who are devoted to science but do not care for literature 
to see the beauty in true expression. 

They saw the snowy mountains rolPd, 
And heaved along the nameless lands 
Like mighty billows ; saw the gold 
Of awful sunsets ; saw the blush 
Of sudden dawn, and felt the hush 
Of heaven when the day sat down, 
And hid his face in dusky hands. 

" They marked the Great Bear wearily 
Rise up and drag his clinking chain 
Of stars around the starry main." 

— Joaquin Miller. 

"The various action of trees rooting themselves in inhospitable 
rocks, stooping to look into ravines, hiding from the search of 
glacier winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine, crowding 
down together to drink at the sweetest streams, climbing hand in 
hand among the difficult slopes, opening in sudden dances around 
the mossy knolls, gathering into companies at rest among the 
fragrant fields, gliding in grave procession over the heavenward 
ridges, ..." — Ruskin. 



CHAPTER XI 

OBJECT LESSONS {continued) 

Judgment called into activity. — In the experimental 
sciences judgment is brought into play constantly to 
accoimt for what is observed. It seems best, therefore, 
not to introduce the experimental form of nature-study 
until the pupils have had some drill — full two years are 
not too much — in the observational exercises. By that 
time their sense-powers are stronger and more compe- 
tent to take note of all the circumstances that make the 
Why and How easier to answer. And, after all, only 
the simplest experimental work should be attempted, and 
not too much of that, below the high school. 

Physics should precede chemistry. — In one other re- 
spect the arrangement of experimental work should differ 
from that of the observational. Whereas the forms of 
work described in the last chapter can and should be 
carried on concurrently, it is much better to give a 
pupil some acquaintance with the simple phenomena of 
physics and their causes, before anything is done in 
chemistry, than to attempt to present the two concur- 
rently. This is true for the one excellent reason, if for 
no other, that physics deals with matter and energy in 
the large, and does not require so difficult manipulation 
or thinking for an elementary grounding in it as does 
chemistry. 

164 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 65 

Purpose. — Just as the purpose in observational work 
is to give the pupil power to perceive and aesthetically 
enjoy the beauty and usefulness of the objects with 
which nature is outwardly clothed, so the purpose in 
experimental work is to enable the pupil to understand 
and intellectually enjoy somewhat of the causes and 
laws that underlie familiar phenomena. Only what is 
fundamental and typical should be chosen as material 
for exercises, and all illustrations should be the simplest 
and most familiar. In all experimental work, from the 
simplest to the highest, the principle should prevail that 
no apparatus is fully effective unless the pupils are al- 
lowed to work with it themselves. But the greatest 
benefit is secured when the pupils are required to make 
as much of the apparatus as they can. In the making 
of illustrative apparatus the natural doing (creative) in- 
stinct finds outlet, and a far more intimate knowledge 
of the fact or principle to be illustrated is acquired 
than by the use of ready-made material. Throughout 
the work the teacher should carefully avoid telling the 
pupils what to look for ; they must see for themselves, 
and, as far as possible, should be led to raise the ques- 
tions why and how of their own accord, instead of wait- 
ing for the teacher to ask them. 

The first exercises in physics should be upon the 
properties of matter. The subject may be introduced 
in some such way as shown in the following illustrative 
lessons : — 

Lesson on Impenetrability 

I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) To train the eye to see fully. 

(2) To teach that two bodies cannot be in the same place at 

the same time. 



1 66 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

(3) To stimulate thought to discover the value of impenetra- 
bility. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The teacher sets before the pupils a glass of water with 

a small bit of cork floating on it, and, handing one of 
them a clear bottle, asks him to turn it mouth down 
over the cork and press it well into the water. 

(2) The teacher then asks several pupils what they saw, 

and from the various answers establishes the fact that 
the water did not fill the bottle, but rose only a little 
way. 

(3) He asks, "What is in the bottle above the water ?" 

"Why does not the water fill the bottle?" "Why 
does it rise in the bottle at all ? " And, as a sort of 
"catch question 11 (catch questions are frequently valu- 
able), " What is the cork for?" 

(4) With the answers to these questions he builds the cen- 

tral idea that two things cannot be in the same place 
at the same time, and incidentally that air is matter 
and that it is compressible. 

(5) Using, now, the term impenetrability, he asks what 

would happen if there were no such thing. The 
replies to this will, in any class of bright boys and 
girls, be varied, interesting, and -valuable. 

Lesson on Adhesion 
I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) To train the eye to resee common happenings. 

(2) To teach the fact of adhesion. 

(3) To stimulate thought to discover some uses of adhesion. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The teacher holds a stamped envelope before the class 
and asks what makes the stamp stay on. Taking the 
answers without comment, he asks again what makes 
the ink stay on ; draws a pencil mark across the envel- 
ope, and asks what makes it stay on ; draws a chalk 
mark on the board, and again asks the same question. 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 67 

(2) Using the answer that best suits his purpose — which 

will most likely be, " It just sticks there " — he will 
ask the pupils to give other examples in which matter 
" sticks to " other matter. After several answers have 
been given, he simply says, " Yes, those are all good ; 
the property that enables things to stick to other things 
is adhesion" and writes the word on the board. 

(3) Then he says quickly, " Tell me some uses of adhesion," 

and again gets many and interesting replies. 

In equally simple ways all the properties of matter 
and their values may be taught and illustrated, and 
along with these should be taught and illustrated the 
three states of matter. 

Then the pupils should be led to form the concept of 
energy, and of the world as made up of matter and en- 
ergy. Phenomena from which to derive these concepts 
are present on every hand ; every fact shows the existence 
and illustrates the necessity of both matter and energy. 

Exercises involving the idea of force may begin with 
the principles of machines, illustrated by simple appa- 
ratus made by the pupils. The elementary principles 
thus discovered should be further illustrated by ana- 
lyzing familiar machines — pumps, mowers, scissors, 
threshers, wagons, typewriters, etc. — into their me- 
chanical elements. Such analysis will prove stimulat- 
ing and helpful in many ways. 

Heat may be studied as an illustration of molecular 
forces, and the first lesson may be carried out somewhat 
as follows : — 

Lesson on Heat 

I. Special end of the lesson : to teach heat as energy. 
II. Processes in realizing the end. 

(1) Under the direction of the teacher a wire ring is pre- 
pared through which a poker, or small iron rod, will 



1 68 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

barely pass. A pupil heats the poker to redness, and, 
upon trial, it is found that the hot poker will not go 
through the ring. The class must see this for them- 
selves, and understand that it is the fact to be noted. 

(2) The pupils, if their previous training has amounted to 

anything, will at once begin to ask why, and attempt 
an answer, almost in the same breath. By guiding the 
questions, answers, and discussions the teacher builds 
the idea of expansion, and then — and not till then — 
uses the word. 

(3) The class are led to understand that this increase in size 

is caused by something forcing the molecules of iron 
apart from within, and then are asked to give other 
instances of expansion due to heat. 

Several simple and effective experiments may be 
made and many everyday illustrations given to make 
clear the modes of distributing heat — radiation, con- 
duction, convection ; and the knowledge thus gained 
can be strengthened and utilized by calling out explana- 
tions of such familiar facts as the packing of ice in saw- 
dust or blankets, the heating of a room by a furnace or 
stove, the " fluffing up " of the feathers of fowls in cold 
weather, the wearing of woolen garments in winter, the 
greater apparent coldness of a bare floor than of a rug 
or carpet, and so on almost without limit. 

Few new facts, many illustrations and applications. 
Note-making. — The facts and principles taught in these 
exercises must be few and fundamental ; but of each fact 
and principle there must be many illuminating illustra- 
tions and applications drawn by the pupils from their 
familiar experiences. It is admittedly bad to stuff 
young minds with mere words ; it is but little better to 
stuff them with facts without having them perceive the 
meanings and relations of things. Even before regular 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 69 

laboratory work begins, the practice of taking notes — of 
recording observations, and writing out possible explana- 
tions of what was observed — should be introduced and 
encouraged. Every precaution should be taken by the 
teacher to prevent note-making from degenerating into 
a mere writing down of what the pupil thinks he was 
expected to see, rather than what he really did see. 
Laboratory notes, whether brief or extensive, should 
cover the following points, and all other matters of 
importance that may occur in special cases : — 

I. Purpose of the experiment. 

II. Apparatus used. 

III. Manipulations. (Notes should be very full.) 

IV. Results observed. 
V. Explanations. 

VI. Queries, or remarks. 
VII. Accidents, if any. 

Chemistry. — The subject of physics is a rich and 
inexhaustible one, furnishing material that can be used 
from the primary grade all the way up. Chemistry is 
not so well adapted to use in the lower grades, and only 
very simple and elementary work should be attempted 
in it below the high school. 

The first exercise in chemistry should, preferably, 
show the difference between chemical action and physical 
action, and may follow the suggestions given below: — 

Lesson on Mixtures and Combinations 

I. Special end of the lesson: to teach the distinction between a 

mixture and a compound. 
II. Processes in realizing this end. 

(1) A heaping spoonful of flour of sulphur and the same 
quantity of fine iron filings are shaken thoroughly to- 



170 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

gether, and the pupils are asked to find some way of 
separating them again. 

(2) With the training they have already had in physics, it 

may be that they will hit upon either or both plans, — 
of spreading the mixture on a table and blowing the 
sulphur free from the iron, or drawing the iron free 
with a magnet. At any rate, the teacher can well 
afford to wait a day or two or even longer — if the in- 
terest does not wane — for the pupils to discover one 
way or the other. 

(3) The sulphur and filings are then placed in a small glass 

or porcelain dish, and hot water is poured upon them. 
They combine, and the pupils are asked whether the 
substances can be separated now as before, and what 
the differences are between this mass and the first. 
The discussion brings out the ideas that in the 
first case the sulphur and iron mixed, and were still 
iron and sulphur ; in the second, they were combined 
into a new substance differing from both. Other ex- 
amples of mixtures and compounds are called for. 

Further development of the subject. — A series of 
exercises should be planned, involving easy experiments 
requiring the use of very simple apparatus, and illus- 
trating the chemical facts of common experience. 
Following the first experiment there may be another 
or two, making clear the difference between elements 
and compounds ; then the constitution of air, the 
chemistry of combustion, the properties of carbon 
dioxide, its presence in expired breath, its function in 
breadmaking and in effervescent drinks, acids and 
carbonates, a few of the chemical symbols, a few of the 
simpler reactions shown by equations, one or two 
experiments showing quantitatively the persistence of 
matter through various forms, — these and the dis- 
cussions and original experiments of the pupils grow- 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 7 1 

ing out of them, will constitute a sufficient amount of 
work to be undertaken between the fifth grade and the 
high school. 

Some definite plan necessary. — However simple this 
elementary work is made, or however little of it there 
is, it should follow some definite plan and carefully 
avoid the aimless fuddling with bottles and tubes and 
drugs that too often results from the teacher's efforts 
to have something "interesting." 

Note-making. — In chemistry, as in physics, pupils 
should make copious notes, and in regular laboratory 
work they should be recorded under the following 
heads : — 



I. 


Purpose of the experiment. 


II. 


Apparatus and material used. 


III. 


Manipulations. 


IV. 


Results observed. 




{ assumed 


V. 


Reactions J or 




[ proved. 


VI. 


Explanations. 


VII. 


Queries, or remarks. 


VIII. 


Accidents, if any. 



Spiritual value of experimental science. — Although 
experimental science does not offer so much material 
or so many opportunities for cultivating the aesthetic 
and the ethical feelings, as do other forms of nature- 
study, still substance nutritive of higher growth may be 
drawn from it. The teacher who feels it himself will 
infuse into his pupils an appreciation of the beauty of 
law ; but there is sometimes danger that teacher and 
students — in advanced scientific work — will come to 
feel that the universality of law precludes the idea of a 



I?2 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Lawgiver. It ought to be true, and will be some day, 
that a study of science will lead to the inescapable 
conviction of the existence of an immanent and benefi- 
cent Intelligence. 

Nature-study enriches the inner life. — No study is 
worth anything that does not enrich the inner and 
higher life of the student, and for this, nature-study 
is preeminently adapted. Even at its poorest it can- 
not fail to add much to the resources within the 
individual ; and in so far as it does that it saves. 
Nothing is more pitiful than a man or a woman who 
is constantly and helplessly dependent upon sources 
outside of self for interest and recreation. When 
growing boys and girls come to some appreciation of 
what has been so richly lavished all about them, and to 
an understanding of even a very few of the revelations 
of nature, they will not be driven to seek an outlet for 
inherent and restless activities in the artificialities of 
society, nor will they yield so readily to the temptations 
that are found everywhere ; there will be far more 
contentment with isolated living, arid cities will not 
grow so rapidly at the expense of the country. Powell 
very rightly says, "There is absolutely nothing in our 
common (rural) school culture to make a child familiar 
with the earth, the soil, the forces, the life — animal or 
vegetable — that he must as a farmer deal with. There 
is no cause for wonder that the drift of our population 
is away from farms into cities. To be ignorant of the 
stones and clays, not even to comprehend the simplest 
operations of nature about us, is to deaden farm life 
beyond endurance." 

The surest and wholesomest way of widening the 
horizon of life is to multiply interests and keep them 



OBJECT LESSONS 1 73 

fresh and eager, and to this end there is no stronger 
contributory influence than nature-study. 

Difficulties in the way. — But there are various diffi- 
culties to surmount, in securing good results. Even in 
graded schools, where elementary science has an as- 
signed place in the primary curriculum, there is often 
difficulty in finding time and material for carrying on 
the work properly. Then, again, to be profitable — in 
fact, to be possible — this work must be oral, no text- 
book being used below the high school, and to do oral 
work well requires a fullness of knowledge, a skill in 
planning, and a vivacity in execution that are not vouch- 
safed to many. 

The complaint of "lack of time," in reply to a sug- 
gestion that some work be done in nature-study, comes 
oftenest and loudest from teachers of the ungraded 
rural schools, and perhaps more justly from them 
than from any other class of primary teachers. But 
when it is remembered what a wealth and variety of 
material they have at their very doors and how many 
familiar experiences they have to build upon in their 
pupils, which city teachers lack, it seems very easy 
to make a little time — once or twice a week, at least, 
if not every day — for some definite work along the 
lines suggested in this and the preceding chapter. If 
the attempt be earnestly made and persisted in for a 
while, it will be found that the interest awakened by 
the new work reacts upon all other school exercises, 
giving a keener edge to all effort, and thus saves time. 

There is some ground for complaint of lack of mate- 
rial, on the part of the city teacher ; but a good deal of 
material may be found even in cities, if it be persistently 
looked for, and in some of the larger cities, now, the 



174 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

school authorities are providing for giving the children 
frequent trips into the country. 

Lack of knowledge the most serious obstacle. — But 
the most serious drawback in this work is the teacher's 
lack of knowledge of the subject-matter. This can be 
overcome only by assiduous study — study not of books 
merely, but of nature at first hand. But books help, 
are indeed indispensable. 

Jackman's " Nature-study and Related Subjects," in 
two parts, and his " Suggestive Outlines," will prove 
most helpful to teachers of any grade, in city or coun- 
try, who want to make a beginning in observational 
work. These books give in detail what to present and 
valuable suggestions as to how to present it. They 
may be obtained from the author, Professor W. S. 
Jackman, Chicago. The teacher will also find a mine of 
information for himself and much helpful guidance in 
Bert's " First Steps in Scientific Knowledge," and 
" Primer of Scientific Knowledge," Lippincott Co. 
.Dana's "Plants and their Children," and Holder's 
" Stories of Animal Life," American Book Co. ; Inger- 
soll's "Wild Neighbors," Macmillan Co.; Kelley's 
" Short Stories of our Shy Neighbors," American Book 
Co. ; Wright's " Citizen Bird," and " Bird Craft," Mac- 
millan Co. ; and Needham's " Elementary Lessons in 
Zoology," American Book Co., are a few of the many 
excellent books from which teachers may get knowl- 
edge, and directions how to study nature. 

The teacher should constantly live by the law of 
growth, remembering that it is also the law of life, 
and that only by keeping his knowledge fresh and 
usable and adding somewhat to it every day, can he be 
a " fountain to his pupils, and not a stagnant pool." 



CHAPTER XII 
GEOGRAPHY 

A center of correlation. — Geography is a group of 
allied subjects rather than a single branch of study, 
and for this reason it is a natural and easy center 
of correlation. It reaches from observational nature- 
study up through geology, meteorology, and astronomy 
to history and sociology, and all the way it is in con- 
tact with many other subjects allied with these. On 
this account, also, it is adapted to the cultivation of 
various mind powers — sense-perception, imagination, 
judgment, and verbal memory. It combines the human, 
and humanizing, element with the best there is in 
nature-study. 

Through a study of geography, in its broadest 
meaning, the pupil comes to a clearer vision of the 
relations of the facts of nature both to one another 
and to man. He learns something of the effect of 
environment upon man -^ upon his characteristics and 
institutions, even upon his ethical creeds and practices, 
and something of man's modification of his environ- 
ment and adaptation of it to himself. 

These various subjects should be differentiated. — But 
what is usually called geography and studied in the 
schools under that name should not be made to include 
so much, or should, at least, reach but a little way 

i75 



176 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

beyond where the several distinct subjects begin clearly 
to differentiate. 

As to what should be included in geography, limited 
as just indicated, the latest, best text-books on the 
subject are, in the main, safe guides, although they 
are deficient in fullness of treatment. The tendency 
has been to spend too much time upon geography as 
a separate text-book subject. A course in geography 
should be arranged to cover the following points : — 

(i) Object lessons on natural surface forms of the earth, and repre- 
sentation of these by modeling in the sand pile or on the 
moldboard ; some study of the forces that modify the sur- 
face ; and the relations of conditions of surface and climate 
to plant and animal life and to man's needs. This work 
should, when possible, be done out of doors ; but the 
teacher who has had no experience in making and carrying 
out lesson plans for such nature-study will do well to make 
use of some of the various nature-study books now so easily 
obtainable. One of the freshest and best of these helps is 
Payne's "Geographical Nature Studies." 

(2) The study of a carefully selected text-book of geography, the 

object being to revive and fix all geographical concepts pre- 
viously gained, to build up some new ones, and to give a thor- 
ough drill in the art of getting information from a map. The 
pupils should be taught to make maps themselves, both in 
relief and on the flat. Familiarity with the map idea and 
what it means should be the aim. 

(3) The persistent use of references — maps, gazetteers, cyclope- 

dias, books of travel, etc. — in general reading and in the 
regular study of history, in all grades from the sixth up. It 
must be an inviolable rule that every place mentioned in his- 
tory or general reading shall be definitely located, and some 
further facts learned about it. 

It is not to be supposed that these phases of work are 
to be sharply discriminated ; they should, rather, over- 
lap and grade into one another. 



GEOGRAPHY 1 77 

ORAL GEOGRAPHY 

Character of earlier exercises. — Much of the earlier 
instruction in geography may be given in connection 
with, and as a part of, outdoor nature-study. Some 
of the most fundamental facts can be learned in this 
way, incidentally and easily ; and there is no need 
that the children shall know they are studying ge- 
ography. It had better be called a part of nature- 
study. 

The teacher's aim, in these first lessons, must be to 
correlate in the pupil's mind the concepts which he 
already has of land and water, the modifying work of 
water, the divisions of land and water and their names 
— as stream, lake, bay, valley, hill, cape, delta, island, 
etc. — the products of agriculture and manufacture, 
and thus give the elements out of which the pupil is 
to construct, later, his images of the earth's modifi- 
cations of surface and man's relations thereto. 

The materials for this oral work lie all about the 
country schoolhouses ; the country teacher, in this 
case as in most others, is rich in opportunity. In the 
cities, occasional trips to the country may be taken, 
if Boards of Education are sufficiently enlightened ; 
and in both the cities and the country much valuable 
work may be done with the sand pile or mold- 
board. 

The sand pile may be heaped up outdoors in the 
school yard, or it may be kept in a box or large drawer 
in the schoolroom, for use as needed on the mold- 
board. A good moldboard may be made by fasten- 
ing strips about the width of a lath around the four 
sides of a table top, or around the top of a large box. 

ROARK'S METH. — 12 



178 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

In the shallow tray thus formed sand may be placed, 
and this apparatus will be the next best thing to out- 
doors, for teaching elementary physiography. Clay, 
putty, coarse salt, or paper pulp may be used in place 
of sand. 

General outlines first. — The first lesson in geography, 
like the first in every other subject, should follow the 
principle that the learner proceeds from general wholes 
to particular parts. So, the general contour and "lay" 
of the land about the schoolhouse should be the ob- 
ject of the first lesson — which will not seem to be a 
" lesson " at all to the children. In this exercise they 
should learn valley, hill, stream — the things and the 
names. At the next lesson the pupils should repro- 
duce what they saw, in the sand pile or on the mold- 
board; that is, they should model the sand into hill, 
valley, and stream bed, thus expressing and fixing the 
concepts. 

The second outdoor lesson may be along the line 
suggested by the following plan : — 

Lesson on Watershed 
I. Special ends of the lesson. 

(1) To build the concepts "watershed' 11 and "drainage. 11 

(2) To supply thus the material from which to construct an 

image of river basins and continental surface forma- 
tions. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) Selection, by the teacher, of some suitable stream near by, 

with smaller tributary rivulets draining a portion of land 
surface. 

(2) A pleasant walk with the primary pupils, some day at 

" playtime, 11 to the piece of landscape chosen as a les- 



GEOGRAPHY 1 79 

son-whole, and putting them to search for little springs 
and rivulets to be traced into the larger stream. 

(3) A talk about why there is a stream there, where the 

stream runs to, where the river into which it flows 
runs to, and why it is well to have these lesser and 
larger slopes of land to drain away the water. 

(4) The modeling of what has been seen, on the return to 

the schoolhouse, and a little talk about how it looks 
" out where the big rivers and big hills are." 

Other lessons. — Other lessons should include shore- 
lines, erosion, silt depositions and deltas, capes, prom- 
ontories, bays, inlets, etc., all of which can be 
seen in the small along streams, or almost any- 
where, even in city gutters, after a rain. All these 
forms should be reproduced by the pupils in the 
sand. 

The sand modeling is, of course, real map drawing 
of the best sort, for it is done in relief. But along 
with it, as soon as the pupils acquire a little dexterity 
in the work, there should be the making of maps on 
flat surfaces, — smoothed sand, paper, or the black- 
board. The first flat map may be a diagram of the 
schoolroom ; the second, another diagram of the room 
with locations of the stove and teacher's desk, or 
other objects, marked; and a third may be a map 
of the school yard, — all drawn to a scale. 

Drawing maps to a scale. — To begin the work of map 
drawing on the flat, each pupil should be provided with 
a foot rule and a lead pencil. For the first lesson, two 
pupils should be delegated to measure the sides of the 
schoolroom, and report the result to the class. The 
figures should be written on the blackboard, and the chil- 
dren should be shown how to lay the rule straight on the 
tablet and draw a line as many half or quarter inches 



180 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

long as there are feet in one side of the schoolroom. 
Then, with the rule placed squarely across the line just 
drawn, the other dimension is laid off, and the map com- 
pleted by drawing the other two sides parallel, respec- 
tively, with these. The result will, in most cases, be a 
rather rude figure, but it is the first map and it is drawn 
to a scale. This is the beginning, and the work should 
continue in much the same way, with diagrams of the 
school yard, the house, barn, and yard at home, sections 
of the roads and lanes near the schoolhouse, etc., until 
the pupils are advanced enough to begin the study of 
printed maps. While they are doing the work in map 
drawing they should learn easily and incidentally the 
points of the compass — if they do not already know 
them — and should learn to give directions and locations 
by them. This drill may begin with simple and familiar 
places and objects, and the questions may be such as, " Is 
the stove in the east or west end of the room ? " " Do you 
go north or south in going home from school ? " " Whose 
is the next house to yours on the west ? " And in mak- 
ing maps, the pupils should from the first mark the car- 
dinal points, and learn to show directions on a map. 
Throughout the course in geography care must be 
taken to keep map drawing subordinated to the pur- 
poses for which it is used ; it must not become an end 
in itself. 

TEXT-BOOK GEOGRAPHY 

If the oral work has been done well, the pupils have 
now a considerable store of geographical concepts, with 
reference to surface forms and maps, and are ready to 
take up intelligently and profitably the study of a text- 
book. 



GEOGRAPHY l8l 

Apparatus. — The text-book work should be well sup- 
plemented by the free use of globes, wall maps, relief 
maps, railroad folders, pamphlets advertising towns 
and resorts, books of reference, and anything else 
geographical which the teacher may get hands upon. 
The advance at the end of the year of text-book study 
should be so marked and thorough that further class 
work in geography would be unnecessary. 

Beginning the use of the text-book. — The transition 
from oral and objective work to the use of the text-book 
should be easy and gradual. Following still the princi- 
ple, " from the whole to parts " — remembering that the 
older pupil can begin with larger wholes than those used 
in the oral work — the first lesson for pupils ready to 
take up the text-book would be upon the globe, the hemi- 
spheres as shown in the books, or on a good wall map. 

For all teaching in which a globe is to be used, a com- 
mon, cheap six-inch one, mounted on a wire base, is far 
preferable in every way to the expensive and complex 
" tellurian," which, like most maps, offers too many con- 
fusing and needless details. 

Divisions of the text-book course. — The text-book 
course will best take up the divisions of the subject in 
the following order: (i) mathematical geography, (2) 
physical geography, (3) descriptive geography, and (4) 
commercial geography. Mathematical geography should 
be so presented as to give clear notions of the great and 
small circles of the earth, meridians, zones, latitude and 
longitude, revolution and rotation, phenomena of day 
and night, and the changes of the seasons. To do this 
well, it will be found useful to have a globe painted 
black so that parallels, meridians, and other lines may be 
chalked upon it plainly. Some fixed point in the room 



1 82 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

— as the end of a stick held up by a pupil — may be 
taken as the sun, a spot on the wall may stand for the 
polestar, and the changes of the seasons, the equinoxes, 
and the solstices may be objectively illustrated, by the 
teacher's moving about the assumed sun, globe in hand, 
questioning and explaining as he goes. The facts thus 
learned should be assumed as known, in teaching other 
and later divisions of the subject, and should be used and 
referred to as often as possible. 

The pupils should be not only permitted but encour- 
aged to handle the globe themselves, and fix the essen- 
sential concepts in their minds. Occasionally such 
questions as the following may be given them to work 
out with the globe before them : — 

(i) How many degrees of latitude may there be, north or south? 

(2) How many degrees of longitude may there be, east or west? 

(3) What city and what rivers are on or very near latitude o ° ? 

(4) How many degrees wide are the temperate zones? the torrid 

zone? 

(5) Why are the tropics just 23 J ° from the equator? 

(6) If the earth's axis were inclined 20 ° how wide would the tem- 

perate zones be ? If it were not inclined at all where would 
the tropics be? 

(7) From what point on the earth's surface should one start, in 

order to go north one hundred miles, west one hundred, 
south one hundred, and then find himself just where he 
started ? 

Physical geography. — It is in the study of physical 
geography that the most rational and successful corre- 
lation of the nature-study work can be made. What the 
child learned in nature-study should be freshened and 
revitalized by being used in physical geography. The 
subject falls naturally under the following heads: (1) 
physics of land ; (2) physics of water ; (3) physics of 



GEOGRAPHY 1 83 

air; (4) distribution of plants and animals. It is not 
wise to attempt any but the most elementary work in 
these subjects below the high school. 

While (1) and (2) topics are being studied, sand 
modeling, or some other form of relief work, should 
constitute a regular feature of the pupils' preparation 
or illustration of the subject-matter. Mountain chains 
with peaks dusted with flour to represent snow, val- 
leys filled with ice and snow to make glaciers ; 
canons, deserts, plains, and many other exhibits of 
land physics can be shown on the sand pile. 

Evaporation, rainfall, water erosion, the results of 
freezing on rocks and soils, the drying and cracking of 
mud banks, may be observed and studied outdoors. 

Movements of air as shown by areas of high and low 
barometer, isobars, and isotherms may be studied on 
government weather maps which will be sent free, 
upon request, to any teacher ; and rain areas, perma- 
nent isotherms, and other climatic peculiarities are 
shown on a series of physical maps in any good text- 
book. 

Relation of physical geography to political. — The 
study of physical geography should be directed with 
constant reference to its relation to descriptive geogra- 
phy. The whole structure of modern geographical 
science is founded upon the known relations of the 
physical conditions of the earth to the needs of plants, 
animals, and man. Pupils should be led to see the de- 
pendence of manufacture upon water power and coal 
supply; of agriculture upon climate and soil; of com- 
merce upon coast indentations, water routes, and fitness 
of land surface for railway building ; of the growth of 
cities upon all these ; in short, the dependence of hu- 



1 84 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

man growth and human character upon the necessity 
of constant conflict or cooperation with the forces of 
nature. 

Use of physical maps. — Much use, in all this work, 
should be made of physical maps — maps showing con- 
tinental reliefs, climate, rainfall, snowfall, mineral prod- 
ucts, soil, cultivated crops, distribution of plants and 
animals, and distribution of human races. Not only 
should such maps in the text-book, or on the wall, be 
carefully studied, but they should be made by the pupils, 
both in relief and on paper. No matter how excellent 
and attractive the book maps are, the pupils ought to 
have the benefit of reproducing their own knowledge 
concretely. 

Pupils should make physical maps. — They should 
draw clear outline maps, the whole class using the 
same scale in any given map. The average rainfall or 
snowfall in various sections of a continent or a country 
may be indicated both by shading and by the figures 
showing precipitation in inches ; on other maps — 
always drawn more or less accurately to a scale — iso- 
thermal lines may be traced, and the mean annual 
temperature marked; on others, the chief products, 
mineral and vegetable, may be shown by glueing on 
bits of the actual products or their pictures. In such 
ways the concepts gained by the pupils may be made 
to take the form of vivid pictures ; their knowledge of 
the earth's surface, and of its local peculiarities and 
products, will consist of clear and accurate images — 
the best, most reliable form knowledge can take. 

Each division should review the preceding. — It is plain 
that the work as above outlined involves the reviewing, 
extension, and application of nature-study. The study 



GEOGRAPHY 1 85 

of descriptive geography should be made to include 
the reviewing, illustration, and application of what 
was learned in physical geography; and it will gen- 
erally be found better, also, to incorporate commer- 
cial geography with the descriptive, giving it some 
special, separate study at the close of the text-book 
course. 

Supplementary matter. — The descriptive text of the 
book should be supplemented with all available material. 
A great deal of helpful matter can be secured at very 
small expenditure of money. Courteous letters to the 
general passenger departments of the great railways, 
the coast- and lake-steamer lines, and the pleasure 
resort and health resort companies, requesting printed 
matter descriptive of points of interest, will bring rich 
returns — maps, circulars, pamphlets, profusely illus- 
trated and furnishing abundant material for a detailed 
study of any part of the country. A good encyclopedia 
is a great aid in descriptive geography, but thousands 
of teachers and pupils must do without it. Even one 
of the almanacs issued annually by the leading news- 
papers will be found very helpful, not only in geography, 
but in history and civics, and may be had for twenty-five 
cents. In most communities, the teacher of geography 
can, with a little effort, secure a sort of "loan exhibit" 
of articles illustrating the dress, manners and customs, 
products, and industries of different places and countries. 
One pupil may bring a stone ax or arrowhead ; an- 
other, a Hindu idol ; another, a bit of seaweed, or 
seashells ; another, specimens of foreign coins and 
stamps ; others may bring pieces of foreign bric-a-brac, 
or cloth, or dolls, or books and papers in modern lan- 
guages. All such things will intensify interest, objec- 



1 86 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

tify the study, and in every way invest with a new charm 
the facts gathered from the book. In schools where 
money is available for such a purpose, a permanent geo- 
graphical museum may be provided and will prove of 
the highest value. 

It would be found comparatively easy for teachers in 
different schools to arrange for a sort of traveling mu- 
seum, on the order of the traveling libraries now in 
vogue ; or, by a system of interchange of geographical 
specimens, permanent museums could be built up even 
in small and poor schools. 

Pictures. — The teacher who is really interested in his 
work can quite readily make a large collection of spe- 
cial maps and pictures, cut from newspapers, stray copies 
of magazines, and advertising pages of periodicals. 
These pictures should be mounted upon sheets of heavy 
paper or light cardboard, cut to uniform size, and should 
be labeled and classified. Of late years the stereopticon 
has come into wide use to illustrate every subject of 
study, and to-day it is an essential part of the equipment 
of every lecture room. It will be found invaluable in 
teaching geography, and an occasional " lantern trip " to 
other places and other countries will do more to arouse 
interest and fix valuable facts than weeks of class recita- 
tion can possibly do. Even the rural schools can secure 
the low-priced instruments and slides and enjoy the bene- 
fit of this mode of illustration. Wherever an opportunity 
offers or can be made, the community outside the school 
should share in the instruction afforded by an intelligent 
use of the lantern. 

Clippings. — It will also be found a fruitful plan to 
clip from various papers that may come to hand, articles 
of geographical value. These should be labeled, classi- 



GEOGRAPHY 1 87 

fied, and filed in envelopes. By work of this kind the 
teacher will not only accumulate a valuable store of 
illustrative and supplementary material, but will also 
add much to his own knowledge and form helpful hab- 
its of closely noting what he reads, and classifying his 
information. The suggestions here made will prove 
quite as helpful to a teacher who has access to refer- 
ence books as to one who works under more restricted 
conditions, because in the several ways indicated a great 
deal of useful matter may be accumulated that cannot 
be found in reference books, however recent. 

Topical outlines. — The topic method of study and 
recitation is especially suited to geography. " Map 
questions " in the book should, as a rule, be ignored 
by both teacher and pupils, and the information de- 
sired should be gathered according to some regular 
order of topics, from the printed matter and maps of 
the text-book, and from the supplementary material 
available. Below is a topic list, in outline, that can 
be modified to suit the work in any grade. It is given 
in a form to use in advanced classes. 

Geography Topic List 

_ T . C in what part of what hemisphere or continent. 
I. Location <.,...,,, .. A 
I latitude and longitude. 

II. Boundaries and area. 

III. Surface. 

(1) Land : mountains, watersheds, valleys, plains, capes, etc. 

(2) Water : rivers, lakes, bays, gulfs, seas. 

t peculiarities and their causes. 
V. Climate \ temperature — average and extreme. 
I rainfall and snowfall. 



1 88 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

VI. Products. 

(i) Mineral. 

(2) Vegetable (indigenous), including forest growths. 

(3) Animal. 

f location. 
VII. Cities and towns -j size. 

[ special points of interest. 

(1) The capital. 

(2) The metropolis. 

VIII. Industries and commerce. 

(1) Exports f crops. 

and -j minerals, 
imports [ manufactured articles. 

(2) Transportation. 

1 . State and county roads. 

f names. 

2. Railroads -j chief cities or towns along routes. 

[ kinds of territory tributary. 

3. Water routes : rivers, canals, lakes, etc. 

4. Caravan routes. 

(3) Communication. 

1. Postal facilities. 

2. Telegraph lines ; cable lines. __ 

3. Long-distance telephone. 

IX. Inhabitants. 

(1) Number. 

(2) Race and nationality. 

(3) Manners and customs. 

(4) Institutions. 

1 . Form of government. 

2. Educational system. 

3. Religion professed. 

X. Points of interest. 

(1) Natural scenery. 

(2) Works of art. 

(3) Historic places. 



GEOGRAPHY 1 89 

Outline should be developed gradually. — The ingenu- 
ity of the teacher will devise adaptations and variations 
of this list, to meet special needs; the only point to be 
insisted upon is that the study and recitation of lessons 
in descriptive geography shall be by correlated topics. 

It is better to develop the outline gradually, a few- 
topics being given at a time. Most of the principal 
points may be first illustrated, in order, by a study of 
the school yard, then by a study of the neighborhood 
about the school. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK 

Spelling. — Spelling drills should be frequent in the 
geography class, and correct pronunciation should be 
constantly insisted upon. The pronouncing vocabulary 
in the back of the book should be used for every lesson. 
In connection with this, the meanings of the names of 
the different countries and states may be searched out. 

Outlines, essays, reports. — It will be found very prof- 
itable to have pupils make out special outlines of various 
countries, and give oral reports or write essays upon 
features of particular interest that deserve fuller in- 
vestigation than can be given in the ordinary work. 
Such themes as " Countries contributing to my Break- 
fast," "Yellowstone Park," "Lookout Mountain," "Re- 
gions represented in a Fruit Stall," readily suggest 
themselves. 

Games. — Geography games have been arranged upon 
the same plan as the game of authors, and will be found 
pleasant and useful as an occasional diversion. A 
"geography match," conducted much as a spelling 
match, helps greatly to fix places, names, resources, 
etc., in memory. A variation of this is to send one 



190 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

pupil to the wall map, pointer in hand, while another 
pupil rapidly names rivers, mountains, towns, to be 
pointed out unhesitatingly. If either hesitates he is 
to take his seat. 

Tracing routes. — One of the best means of fixing 
places and directions in the minds of the pupils is the 
tracing, from memory, of routes by water or rail, or 
both, from one point to another — as from Duluth to 
Venice, from Seattle to Marseilles, from St. Louis to 
the city of Mexico. Such an exercise compels a pano- 
ramic view that is pretty sure to result in a fixed 
image. 

APPLIED GEOGRAPHY 

There is no need of studying text-book geography 
for more than a year, if for so long. But all that is 
learned in geography up to the time the text-book is 
laid aside, should be fixed, applied, and made real by 
use in the study of history and in general reading. 
It must be the set rule of teacher and pupils that 
every place and every event met with in reading or 
studying, must be located, either from memory or by 
reference to a map. The "new geography" is based 
on the idea that knowledge of a place is not worth 
while unless something has happened or is happening 
there. A good deal of this supplementary material 
may be read in class. A special weekly feature of 
school work should be the reporting of current events 
of interest, and while such a report is being made by 
one pupil another may stand at the wall map and 
quickly indicate the place of each occurrence men- 
tioned. 

Geography and literature. — Geography and literature 



GEOGRAPHY 191 

may be correlated very successfully, each being made 
to act and react on the other to the great advantage of 
both. If the teacher be fortunate enough to have the 
use of a reference library, he should make out a list of 
books or articles in papers and magazines to be read, in 
whole or in part, by the pupils. Or he may plan a 
course of reading for them to follow at home after they 
have finished the regular school work in geography. 
The following representative list of books will illustrate 
what is meant : Lummis's " Some Strange Corners of 
our Country," Murfree's " In the Tennessee Mountains," 
Miller's " Songs of the Sierras," Irving's "Alhambra," 
Taylor's "Views Afoot," Holmes's " My Hundred Days 
in Europe," Butterworth's " Zigzag Journeys," and the 
series of Geographical Readers, issued by different pub- 
lishers. Lists of most excellent supplementary matter 
will be found in the Natural Advanced Geography. 

Geography and patriotism. — One aim that should 
guide the broader teaching of geography in advanced 
classes is the cultivation of patriotism. A strong com- 
ponent in the love of country is a knowledge of the 
country's size and resources, and its beauty and sublimity 
of natural scenery. Such knowledge not only deepens 
pride in one's own land as great in material things, but 
quickens the ambition to have her become greatest in 
spiritual things — a moral force in the world's progress. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HISTORY 

Definition and illustration. — History is, in its broad- 
est meaning, everything that has happened ; in a nar- 
rower sense, it is everything that has happened through 
human agency. By the first definition, the development 
of the earth from the nebula to its condition to-day is 
history; by the second, only those changes that have 
occurred since man's advent upon earth, and that are 
due to his reaction upon his various environments, con- 
stitute history. That which makes history interesting 
and valuable, whether it be geological or political, is the 
human element, the relation of events to man, — to his 
wants and his progress. In a very true sense, history 
is biography with a large background. It is as biog- 
raphy almost wholly that our national nistory should be 
taught, in the first four or five grades. 

ORAL HISTORY 

The lessons, through these grades, would best be 
only occasional, and should be oral. The subject should 
be presented chiefly by biographical stories, and should 
be confined to the. facts of history, leaving the underly- 
ing causes — the philosophy of history — and their rela- 
tions to the present, for more advanced work. 

Telling better than reading. — These stories would 
much better be told than read to the children. Telling, 
if it be done at all well, with any life or play of genuine 

192 



HISTORY 193 

interest, makes the personal element more real and vivid 
to the hearer, and enables the teacher the better to 
make adaptations of the story to the special needs of his 
pupils. The German pedagogists consider the ability 
to make and tell stories a prime qualification in a teacher, 
and German normal schools give special attention to 
the cultivation of the story-telling power. But the exer- 
cises may profitably be varied occasionally by reading 
from some one of the excellent books prepared espe- 
cially for this way of teaching history. Eggleston's " First 
Book in American History," " Stories of American Life 
and Adventure," by the same author, and " Great Amer- 
icans for Little Americans " are admirable examples of 
this class of books, and are well suited not only to be read 
to the pupils, but also to furnish the teacher, occasionally, 
with the matter and style of his stories. What is true of 
every other branch is especially true of history — that 
the teacher needs to have a clear view of the subject as 
a whole, and of the principal subdivisions and their rela- 
tions to one another. He must plan his "talks" or 
readings carefully so as to give to his beginners in sim- 
ple form the nuclear facts, in biographic stories, of each 
great epoch of American history. It is not to be under- 
stood that he shall give, in this oral work, any outline 
of history to be learned or followed by the pupils ; he 
follows the outline himself, guides his own work by it. 

Pictures a great aid. — In teaching history, as in 
teaching geography, an abundant supply of pictures 
will be greatly helpful. History, for its effective 
assimilation, makes heavy demands upon imagination, 
and pictures especially aid this faculty. There should 
be portraits, pictures showing the dress, the houses, 
the manner of life, customs, and peculiarities of the 
roark's meth. — 13 



194 METHOD IIV EDUCATION 1 

people told or read about. In history teaching, too, the 
lantern is of great value, and the school that is provided 
with one and a good supply of slides can do much more 
effective work than if these are lacking. 

Exact geography not needed in primary history. — 
Although it is very essential to a clear conception of 
history that events, dates, and places be closely linked 
together by as many ties of association as possible, yet 
the work in primary history is begun so early that 
strict attention to either localities or dates is not easy. 
Nor would it be particularly advisable, even if it were 
possible; for the boy and girl from six to eight years 
old rather prefer the indefinite " one time " and " some- 
where." 

Exact? chronology to be preserved. — But at the same 
time, care should be taken to have all the stories and 
narrations follow the exact chronological order of events. 
So much depends not only upon the manner, but, as 
well, upon the order, in which any subject is presented, 
and built into the mind of the learner ; and this is espe- 
cially true in history. But to follow the chronological 
order it is not necessary to require the learning of dates, 
during the first two years of elementary history teaching. 

It seems better, pedagogically, to begin with Colum- 
bus and make the first presentation of the facts of our 
history in chronological order, than to begin with the 
history nearest in time and place to the pupil. In the 
first teaching of geography, the material is abundant, 
close at hand, is familiar to the children, and adequately 
illustrative of wider geographic truth. It is not so in 
history ; the primary pupil cannot readily comprehend 
that the events occurring in his own daily experience, 
or even those illustrated by monuments or historic spots 



HISTORY 



195 



in his neighborhood, are history. And even if he could 
so comprehend them, he would lack power to understand 
them in their relations to historic development. Because 
an event is near a pupil in time and place it does not at 
all follow that it is near him, or can appeal to him, psycho- 
logically. The stories of persons and places, of events 
and deeds, far away in time and space, have the flavor 
of the myth, and will therefore be enjoyed. And be- 
sides, to unfold history from the beginning greatly sim- 
plifies the chronology, which is so important. 

First lesson. — The first lesson in oral history may be 
upon Columbus's first voyage of discovery, and may 
follow the plan suggested below. 

Plan of Lesson on Columbus's Voyage 

I. Ends in view in the lesson. 

(1) To impart the facts of Columbus's voyage. 

(2) To show something of the condition of human knowledge 

at that time. 

(3) To arouse an interest that shall demand a continuation 

of the narrative. 
II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) The telling of the story, briefly and interestingly, 

(a) describing Columbus's early life, (#) showing 
why he wanted to make this voyage, (V) giving what 
people said of him and his plan, (d) describing how 
he was at last enabled to start, and (e) carrying the 
account up to the time when his sailors were ready to 
throw him overboard and start back. 

(2) Showing portraits of Columbus — among others, the one 

on the Columbian half-dollar — and pictures of the 
ships and sailors. 

(3) Allowing a few minutes for questions on the incidents 

told, care being taken not to answer any questions on 
the outcome of the voyage or as to whether the sailors 
really got rid of Columbus. 



196 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Second lesson. — The second lesson should begin with 
a quick oral reproduction of the first story by some one 
or more of the pupils. The narrative should then carry 
the discoverers to their first land, and describe the land- 
ing, the conduct of the natives, and the work of the ex- 
plorers up to the time of sailing on the return trip. The 
teacher should make it a point to stop the story at some 
specially interesting incident, so as to sustain continu- 
ously the desire of the pupils to know "what next?" 

The experiences of Columbus easily make three or 
four lessons, and these may be illustrated by the pic- 
tures on the Columbian stamps, in addition to other 
pictures. 

Group-centers for further lessons. — The Period of 
Exploration and Discovery is very rich in material for 
story after story. The facts are grouped around the 
Cabots, Magellan, Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Raleigh, 
Hudson, and others, and should be presented in chrono- 
logical order — but without naming dates. In what may 
be called the " biography course " in history, all the 
periods should be gone over, and their leading char- 
acters presented. 

Culture and ethics. — The impressions can be deep- 
ened, and the great value of history as a culture study 
can be availed of even in these earlier lessons, and 
much more so in advanced classes, by introducing poems 
and songs that embody or illustrate historic facts. A 
special part of every teacher's preparation for teaching 
history should be the searching out and classifying of 
the literature of the subject. In this " side light " 
matter should be included interesting and true anec- 
dotes of persons, especially of their childhood and 
youth. These anecdotes if properly selected and rightly 



HISTORY 197 

used, will be found rich in the ethical or character-making 
content that constitutes one of the chief values of history. 
Observing special days. — Here another plan suggests 
itself, which is suitable for use in almost all grades, and 
for the whole school as well as for the classes in history 

— the plan of celebrating certain days. These should 
for the most part be birthdays of people who have made 
history, but may occasionally be anniversaries of events. 
In the latter €ase, the personal element should be made 
especially prominent. Not only statesmen and the 
heroes of our great military and naval exploits should 
be remembered and their deeds taught in this way — 
they usually receive rather more than enough attention 

— but also great explorers, inventors, philanthropists, 
in short, those who, irrespective of sex or condition in 
life, have done great things for human comfort and 
happiness. 

There must be due regard for the relative value of 
events and characters ; only to the most important need 
a whole day, or even a considerable part of one, be given. 
" Special day " programmes are best carried out, usually, 
as a part of the opening exercises of the school. The 
following programme is given by way of suggestion ; 
it is adaptable to other characters and to any kind of 
school. All participants in the programme are to be 
well drilled beforehand. 

Programme for an Edison Day 

I. On the stage or rostrum of the schoolroom is placed a large 
picture, or pictures, of Edison. If possible, several pictures 
should be exhibited, illustrating phases of his career from 
newsboy to millionaire. 

II. Pupils appointed for that purpose give brief, spirited descrip- 
tions (1) of his boyhood, (2) of the beginnings of his career, 



198 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

(3) of his present life and work, and (4) of his principal 
inventions, their uses and benefit to society. 

III. Pictures of some of his most noteworthy inventions and of his 

home and laboratory are passed about, and opportunity is 
given the pupils to ask questions or to give other facts. 

IV. The teacher closes the exercise by holding a quick, animated 

oral review, in which are skillfully brought out the points in 
Edison's life that show his development of purpose and 
character. 

Stories which are told or read by the teacher should 
be reproduced by the pupils, orally at first, both orally 
and in writing later. A reproduction should usually 
immediately follow the telling or reading of a story ; 
and in reviews, which should be rather frequent, several 
stories should be combined in reproduction. 

History by events. — During the fourth and fifth years 
in school, the whole subject may be presented again, but 
this time by events rather than biographically. For 
example, this second going over will begin with the 
Discovery of the Western World, and will proceed 
through the Voyages of Exploration, the First Settle- 
ment in America, etc., in chronological order. In the 
first going over, incidents were grouped about a center 
of biography ; in the second, the incidents are grouped 
together to constitute an event, and the personal element 
is not so prominent. The acquisitive capacity of the 
pupils having increased as they advanced, they should 
be given additional facts regarding each event, and 
should have some drill in clustering what they know 
about a few important dates. Very few dates should 
be learned during these two years, but those should be 
thoroughly fixed in memory. 

At the age of nine or ten, also, the pupils know 



HISTORY 199 

enough geography to begin to localize the events they 
learn in history. The wall maps should be used for this 
purpose, and should be used as dates are — rather spar- 
ingly and only to fix the more important events. But 
from this time on, in the teaching of history, care must 
be taken to fix the associations of three things at each 
step — the event, its time, and its place. 

History and language lessons. — The oral lessons in 
history, throughout, should be used as the basis of much 
of the language work. There should be not only fre- 
quent oral reproductions, but what has been learned 
should afford the material for many written stories, in 
which the pupils should be permitted the greatest free- 
dom of expression, putting down their own selections 
of important facts and items of interest about people 
and places. It cannot be too faithfully remembered 
that every act of expression serves to intensify the 
corresponding impression. 

Text-books introduced. — In the fifth year a suitable 
elementary text-book may be introduced, for conven- 
ience, although it is not necessary, and the work can be 
better done without it, if the teacher carefully plans and 
prepares for each exercise. The lessons during the 
fourth and fifth years may occur two or three times a 
week. 

Local history. — At this stage of advancement and 
from now on the pupil can be profited by some study 
of local history. Interest has been by this time aroused 
in history as history, and there will be an appreciation 
of persons and events that are objectified by local monu- 
ments, statuary, parks, or natural scenes of historic in- 
terest. As illustrations may be named Fort Ancient, in 
Ohio; Blue Licks, in Kentucky ; Harpers Ferry; the 



200 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Lincoln monument, in Springfield; the Alamo; the 
portraits and memorial tablets of eminent persons, to 
be found in almost any town in the United States. 

It is greatly to be desired that the teaching of local 
history shall stimulate local pride, so that all places of 
historic interest shall be appropriately marked and the 
traditions that cluster about them shall be carefully and 
correctly preserved. There is hardly a community in 
this country, new as many portions of it are, that does 
not have some spot more or less noted as the scene of 
occurrences a well-preserved account of which would 
greatly enrich the real inner history of the country. In 
many localities the material is abundant enough to jus- 
tify the organization of local history clubs, and such 
clubs and the history classes of the district schools 
could be of much mutual help. In few places is the 
local history as well known as the history of the Revolu- 
tion or the Civil War — and such should not be the case. 

Current events. — About the same time that local his- 
tory is taken up the teacher should begin to direct the 
pupils' attention to current events, or contemporaneous 
history. Further suggestions under this head will be 
given later in this chapter ; the point to be emphasized 
here is that the young people should begin to realize 
that history is continuous and alive, and that their own 
lives form a part of it. 

The pupils are now, in their sixth school year, in pos- 
session of a tolerably close-fitted and well-grasped series 
of facts, and are ready to begin the study of the aver- 
age grammar school history text-book. They have ac- 
quired, in right chronological order, the leading facts 
of their country's history ; they should now have those 
facts set in relative proportion, in historical perspective, 



HISTORY 20 1 

and should give more attention to relations of cause 
and effect. 

A history scheme or outline. — The use of the text- 
book should be to aid an extensive — rather than an 
intensive — study of the subject; and this study should 
follow a scheme or outline designed by the teacher to 
give a clear and connected view of the whole subject 
and of each part in its relation to the whole. The 
method is still analytic, or analytico-synthetic ; the dif- 
ference of presentation is in the lesson-wholes selected. 
The early life of Columbus and a part of his voyage 
constitute a sufficiently large lesson-whole for an oral 
exercise with a primary class. A bird's-eye view of 
the whole field of American history is a proper lesson- 
whole for the first lesson of a class ready to take up the 
regular text-book work. The subject should be pre- 
sented as a whole, by the teacher's developing, through 
suggestive questioning, some such outline as follows : — 

Epochs 1 

i 1 Colonization. 
2 1 Nationalization. 
3 1 Renationalization. 

These terms should be written on the board, as ex- 
pressing the ideas advanced by the class in reply to 
questions by the teacher. The discussion of these — 
their meanings, what general events each includes, and 
how each epoch grows out of the preceding and leads 
to the next — should constitute the first exercise. 

1 The method here used, of grouping the events of American history 
about three great centers, originated with Dr. R. H. Holbrook, and is fully 
developed in his admirable " Outlines of U. S. History." 



202 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Boundary events and dates. — The second lesson 
should include a reproduction of the first, by the pupils, 
and the affixing of boundary events and dates to the 
epochs, by the teacher. At the close of the second 
lesson the outline will stand thus : — 

Epochs 

n „ , . . (from the voyage of Ericson, iooo, 
i 1 Colonization A- J ° . j <■ 

( to the Declaration of Independence, 1776. 

^from the Declaration of Independence, 1776, 

{ to Hayes's Administration, 1877-81. 

. _ .... (from Hayes's Administration, 1877-81, 
3 1 Renationahzation l J ^ 7 ' 7 

J (to the present time. 

The third lesson will begin with a quick, sharp drill 
(see p. 85) upon these epochs, and their boundary 
events and dates, and this drill should continue until the 
teacher is satisfied that each pupil in the class can give 
epochs, events, and dates, quickly and accurately from 
memory. If there is time, after this drill, the first 
epoch may be taken up and analysis of it begun. The 
work will continue in this way throughout the term. 
Reviews and drills should be frequent and thorough, 
and should result in the instant readiness of the pupils 
to reproduce tinders tandingly all of the outline they 
have had, and to fit into the general scheme any part 
of the history so far learned. The outline should not 
be overloaded with details nor crowded with too many 
dates. It is to be remembered that this study of the 
subject is to be extensive rather than intensive. If the 
topical scheme suggested above be developed it will fall 
into the following subdivisions, which may be carried as 
far as the teacher thinks is warranted by the needs and 
abilities of his class. 



HISTORY 



203 



Topical Outline of American History 

(Epoch I.) i 1 Colonization, 1000-1776. 

Ericson, 1000, 
i 2 Exploration and Discovery \ to 



Periods 



Periods 



2 2 Confederation 



r Raleigh's Colony, 1585, 
2 2 Settlement J to 

I Settlement of Georgia, 1733. 

("Stamp Act" Congress, 1765, 
to 
Declaration of Independence, 1776. 
(Epoch II.) 2 1 Nationalization, 1 776-1 877. 

f Declaration of Independence, 1776, 
/ i 2 Separation \ to 

I Final Treaty, 1783. 

Articles of Confederation, 1777, 
to 
k Adoption of Constitution, 1789. 
C Adoption of Constitution, 1789, 
L 3 2 Federation \ to 

I Hayes's Administration, 1877-81. 
r 1789 
i 3 Union] to 

{ Civil War, 1861. 
r 1861 
2 s Disunion \ to 

[ Lee's Surrender, 1865. 
f 1865 
3 3 Reconstruction j to 

l Hayes's Administration, 
1877-81. 
(Epoch III.) 3 1 Renationalization, 1877 to present time. 



This topical outline is given merely as an illustration 
of the method of handling the subject in advanced 
grades, and with the full consciousness that there are 
other lines of cleavage in our national history which are 



204 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

as distinctly marked as these, and which may be used 
as well as the ones here shown. 

Using the outline. — The point to be insisted upon is 
that the teacher shall present the subject topically and 
in perspective, giving the pupils a comprehensive plan 
of the whole, into which details may be fitted as the 
work goes forward. So much of the outline as is given 
above should be so fixed in the minds of the pupils by 
frequent and thorough drill, as to become their a, b, c 
of history. At every step the pupils should be required 
to develop parts of the outline themselves, setting 
events in chronological order and according to their 
relative importance. Only the main heads should be 
given by the teacher, and even these should not be 
given outright, but as far as possible developed in dis- 
cussion by class and teacher. The pupil's self-activity 
must be evoked, and this cannot be done by giving 
them fully made outlines. 

Overlapping. — It will be noted that the periods over- 
lap in events and boundary dates, instead of being strictly 
consecutive, as in some other outlines of history. The 
arrangement given here seems the more natural, be- 
cause, as a matter of fact, the periods of history do 
overlap, and are not set off from each other by rigid 
demarcation. 

The last epoch is not subdivided into periods, because 
it is difficult to hold in perspective history so recently 
made, and it was thought better to leave the arrange- 
ment of the latest periods to the teacher, who can give 
the events such a grouping as will best illustrate and 
emphasize his view of their relative value. As an aid 
in fixing that general grouping of events which it is so 
necessary to remember in order to have exact knowl- 



HISTORY 



205 



edge, the scheme shown below is very useful. The 
making of these schemes by the pupils may be required 
as a part of the review work. The arrangement is 
applicable in general history or in that of a single 
country. 









EVENTS 






DATES 












Political 


Scientific 


Literary 


Religious 


Educational 




Texas ap- 


Telegraph 


New Eng- 


Methodist 


First Nor- 




plies for 


operated 


land School 


Church 


mal School 




admission 


between 


of Poets. 


split on 


established 


1844 


to Union. 


Bait, and 




slavery. 


at Albany, 




Washington. 




Murder of 


N.Y. 






Wells uses 




Jos. Smith. 








gas as an- 




# 








aesthetic. 









The making out of schemes under the heads here 
shown will strongly emphasize a fact that needs empha- 
sis — and that is, the political history of a country is but 
one phase of its history, and not always the most impor- 
tant or interesting one. A glance through the older 
text-books of history shows that when these were writ- 
ten, wars on land and sea and the acts of statesmen and 
legislative bodies were considered to be all of history 
worth studying. But now we know that wars, political 
quarrels, and laws are only the outward symptoms and 
incidents of true history. This idea is well set forth by 
Professor McMaster, when he says, " No American 
would seek to dull the luster of our military and naval 
annals, to forget the names of the men who led us to 
victory on land and sea, or cease to draw lessons of 



206 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

patriotism and devotion to our country from the story 
of heroism and sacrifice made by tens of thousands of 
men who laid down their lives that we might be what 
we are. But he should be distinctly given to under- 
stand that the lives and deeds of the heroes of war do 
not comprise, but are comprised in, the history of the 
United States. The thing to be impressed on him is 
that these great inventions and discoveries, and the 
leading inventions and discoveries of the nineteenth 
century, have bettered the condition of civilized man 
everywhere, and are contributions to human welfare 
made by America. We are a people animated by the 
highest and noblest ideals of humanity, of the rights of 
man, and no history of our country is rightly taught 
which does not set this forth. Above all, it should be 
so taught as to destroy that baneful belief that we have 
degenerated from our forefathers. . . . 

" The motive for discovery ; the effect of discovery 
on the geographical ideas of the time ; the reasons why 
the four great maritime powers of Europe came into 
possession of our country ; why the Dutch acquired the 
Hudson ; why the Spaniards occupied our Gulf coast, 
the English, the Atlantic coast, and the French, the 
Great Lakes and the Mississippi ; and the profound 
and lasting influence this particular arrangement of 
European settlers had on our later history, — these are 
the things it concerns us to know, rather than the 
doings of particular men and the Indian wars of par- 
ticular colonies." 

Other uses of scheme work. — Such scheme work, 
with suitable modifications, has much value in studying 
and teaching history so as to show both the concurrent 
and consecutive development of the various trends of 



HISTORY 207 

national progress. For example, one column may be 
made to show the inception and growth of the federal- 
ists idea, the events of our constitutional history ; an- 
other column would show the lines along which science 
has grown, and so on. And the placing of these col- 
umns together in the scheme would show the condition 
of the whole field at any given date. 

Causal relations in history. — The causal relations of 
events should be made prominent in the teaching of 
history in the higher grades. In most instances these 
relations are plain and easy of comprehension in the 
light of the experience and observation of even young 
students. The relation of cause and effect constitutes 
one of the strongest forms of the association by which 
things are held in memory. The study of causes also 
demands the activity of the judgment, or relational 
faculty ; and thus two of the most important powers of 
the mind are disciplined by the right study of history. 
Such a study of history also prepares the pupil for en- 
tering, later, upon the interested and intelligent study 
of sociology, a science which is largely dependent upon 
history for its inductions. And it is through an under- 
standing of the causes of events, directly linking the 
past with the present, that the study of history can be 
vitalized and infused with interest for the student who 
has passed out of the myth epoch, and is beginning to 
enter into the reflective stage of growth. Unrelated 
facts are dry and distasteful, and nowhere more so than 
in history. Every event of importance enough to be 
studied at all should be studied in relation to its causes 
and its results. 

Intensive history study. — In the last year of the high 
school and in the college there should be some intensive 



208 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

study of history. Some one period, covering not too 
long a time, should be selected and studied in detail. 
Origins, causes, effects, relations with other periods 
should all be carefully and closely studied. In such 
work access should be had to at least the more impor- 
tant original documents or to facsimile copies of these. 

Geography in history. — Geography is the back- 
ground of history, and it is necessary all the time to 
keep pupils in mind of the fact — self-evident as it 
seems — that events occur somewhere as well as some- 
when. One of the greatest faults to be found with the 
old teaching was the isolation of these two subjects 
throughout ; history was not localized, and geography 
was carried in some mental compartment carefully sepa- 
rated from everything else, as if it were valuable purely 
for its own sake. The older text-books on history had 
few and poor maps, wall maps and atlases were sel- 
dom or never used in studying or reciting history, and 
consequently notions of places where historical events 
occurred were very hazy. 

The proper localizing of history not only fixes it, but 
teaches geography better than any study of geography 
alone can do. Text-books of history should be selected 
which have numerous and clear maps, and frequent use 
should be made of atlases by the pupils while preparing 
a lesson. In recitation, suitable wall maps should be at 
hand for ready reference, and should be used freely by 
the pupils in reciting. If wall maps are, for any reason, 
not available, then the text-books should be unhesitat- 
ingly opened, and their maps used in recitation. 

Map drawing. — In addition to such study of maps, 
the pupils should be required to prepare, as a part of 
their history work, special maps of their own drawing. 



HISTORY 209 

These may be drawn to a specified scale, on suitable 
sheets of uniform size ; or, preferably, they may be pre- 
pared on outline maps, which are procurable from any 
school publishing company, and the use of which will 
secure greater neatness and uniformity and save much 
time. For example, the outline map of the hemi- 
spheres may be used first, and each pupil required to 
bring in, after a week's study of the text-book, one of 
these maps, filled out in colors, to show Genoa, Spain, 
Columbus's route across the Atlantic, and the region of 
his first landing upon this hemisphere. 

While studying the explorations of the Cabots, De 
Soto, or La Salle, the routes followed should be traced 
upon outline maps of North America, as the study pro- 
ceeds, and these maps should be turned in as a part of 
either regular or review work. In the same way maps 
should be made to show the acquisition of territory, the 
sites of famous battles, — the position of opposing 
armies being marked in solid lines of different colors, 
while routes of marches are shown by broken or dotted 
lines, — the changes and growth of parties, the increase 
of population, and, in short, nearly every kind of his- 
toric fact that can be graphically represented. Care 
should be taken to print in all important dates, on the 
face of the map. 

This sort of map work is very valuable in the general 
study of history, but is still more so in the intensive 
study of the subject, — the careful working out in de- 
tail of some definite portion of history. 

Current history. — Bearing in mind what history is, 
the teacher should make provision for regular exer- 
cises in current history. These should occur about 
once a week, and can and should be made the " point 
roark's meth. — 14 



210 METHOD IJV EDUCATION 

of contact " between what the pupils have been study- 
ing and the movement of events that they see going 
on about them daily. Even in this the teacher will 
have to be on guard to keep from making the current 
history simply a separate and additional study. It 
must be handled so as to show the connection between 
past and present, in what ways the present is better or 
worse than the past, and what lessons the past and 
present both give by which we may profit. Too much 
care cannot be exercised to keep out of these reports of 
current news all the mere gossip and scandal which fill 
so many columns of the daily paper. Personal gossip 
(except in rare cases), scandal, murders, suicides, acci- 
dents, etc., are not news. Such things, therefore, should 
not be reported on " current history days " in school. 
There are many excellent publications of low cost, de- 
signed especially to furnish real news, genuine current 
history, to teachers and pupils, and one or more of 
these papers should be in every school. About the 
best antidote to the sensational newspaper is appre- 
ciation of really important events, and this apprecia- 
tion it is certainly one of the functions of the school 
to give. 

Assigning various news topics. — A good plan is to 
allot the news, under different heads, to several groups 
of pupils. Thus, one group will be expected to bring 
in the home political news, another the foreign political 
news, another the scientific news, another the educa- 
tional, another the literary. Sometimes each pupil 
may be requested to bring in any bit of news that inter- 
ests him most, or that he thinks is most important. The 
teacher should see to it that the reports of events are 
couched in good language and contain something worth 



HISTORY 211 

telling. Special encouragement should be given to the 
bringing in of "good news" — that which shows the 
best side of human nature, deeds of noble charity or 
self-sacrifice. 

It is well to have the pupils, in this reporting of news, 
note carefully the times and places of dispatches, and 
by whom sent. Interest and knowledge may be in- 
creased occasionally by tracing out the cable routes 
along which comes foreign news ; and when, as some- 
times happens, news of an event is received at an hour 
earlier than the time of its occurrence, that fact may 
be used as a practical illustration of "longitude and 
time." 

Making and preserving clippings. — A part of every 
school's equipment for teaching history should be a 
classified collection of clippings cut from papers and 
magazines. Pupils can add much to such a collection, 
and will appreciate its value in proportion as they have 
helped to form it. 

All reports of current news, as well as the recitation 
of the regular history lessons, should be made with maps 
in full view. Geography is learned in this way more 
effectively than in any other. The time to fix in the 
mind a locality — town, river, mountain, etc. — is when 
we are interested in some event which has happened 
or is expected to happen there. 

Fixing dates. — To teach dates so that they shall be 
retained is a difficult matter, for the reason, chiefly, 
that there are so few real associations clustering natu- 
rally about a date — a mere group of figures. It is un- 
wise, in the first place, to attempt to teach many 
dates. The " boundary " dates and events of the epochs 
and periods should be closely associated and carefully 



212 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

drilled upon until they are in the mind to stay. This is 
true, also, of the dates that mark other turning points 
or growth-impulses in our history. Other dates may be 
learned as needed, but the pupils should not be required 
to retain them all. Encouragement should, however, be 
given to the developing of a strong and ready memory 
for dates. 

"Correlative" dates and events. — A good device — 
psychologically good because it strengthens association 
— is to "yoke" two or more dates, with their corre- 
sponding events, taking one date in the present, the 
other in the past. The teacher may say, for example, 
"Just fifty years ago to-morrow an important event 
occurred in our history ; find out what it was, and tell 
me, for a part of to-morrow's lesson." 

History in training expression. — In school work, 
everything should be made to contribute something to 
training in expression ; and to this end history can be 
fruitfully used. The outlines, made by the pupils, of 
the different periods and their subdivisions, are valuable 
forms of expression of logical thought and selective 
power. These outlines should be presented in class 
and fully discussed and amended in the course of the 
recitation, and finally copied in permanent form by the 
pupils. The subject of history is also very rich in 
materials for essays, and a written discussion of some 
especially interesting topic should be a frequent feature 
of the work. The essays should sometimes be prepared 
beforehand, and sometimes they should be written in 
class upon topics assigned quickly at the beginning of 
the recitation period. In either case, the teacher should 
criticise the work upon its mechanical neatness, histor- 
ical accuracy and completeness, and rhetorical finish. 



HISTORY 213 

The training secured by such exercises will be found 
valuable in acquiring accuracy and readiness of written 
expression. 

Debates. — History abounds in "debatable questions," 
too, and debates should be a more or less frequently 
required form of class exercise. The pupils should be 
encouraged to give full and free expression to their own 
thoughts about some point upon which differences of 
opinion may exist. The themes should be assigned 
beforehand, usually, and the terms and methods of the 
forensic combat should be arranged by the teacher. 
This sort of work will always be found to add much 
zest to the study of history, and thus increase the ease 
and diminish the time of learning it. 

History as a culture study. — The use of history in 
expression training brings out much of its value as a 
culture study, but by no means all. History must be 
used as a subject of especial and distinctive value in 
cultivating the literary taste and the ethical nature. 

There should be as much reading as possible, in con- 
nection with history study, — not reading of the text- 
book as a reader (a most pernicious practice), but 
reading of history " side lights." Old books of travel 
and description, — Dickens's "American Notes," for 
example — essays, stories, — such as " Hugh Wynne " 
— poems, songs, based on historic facts should, when 
possible, be brought into requisition to illuminate and 
vitalize the knowledge acquired by regular study. What- 
ever may be said against the historical novel as a 
form of pure literature, it has been found of much value 
from the pedagogical standpoint ; its use is markedly 
helpful in the study of special times and events, and 
it is good for the teacher that there has been in re- 



214 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

cent years a marked recrudescence of this variety of 
fiction. 

History and ethics. — All through the study of history, 
emphasis should be placed upon its value in forming 
character — in furnishing ideals of individual life and in 
cultivating sentiments of lofty patriotism. Even in ad- 
vanced history there should be much biography, taught 
and learned as biography, and from it may be drawn 
most effective and abundant help to purposeful living 
and noble deeds. Through the right teaching of history 
and biography the public school — of whatever grade — 
can do much toward discharging its especial function of 
training for citizenship. 

Deeds of heroism, not only in the larger arenas of life, 
but in the quiet round of everyday duty, should be dwelt 
upon in the study of eminent men and women through 
whose service, public or private, our country has been 
made greater. The young should be led to see that real 
greatness does not consist alone in deeds of valor upon 
the field of battle, or in distinguished statesmanship, but 
that there must be other forms of excellence before these 
can be — there must be sacred family life, the love of 
home, individual integrity, and devotion to the claims of 
immediate duty. Along with those who have led armies 
and parliaments must be placed others who have directed 
the forces of industry, and others still who have wrought 
with brain and hand and conscience, at whatsoever they 
found to do, in rearing the fabric of the nation. Out of 
what others have done and the way they have done 
must grow in each fresh mind the ideals of life and 
duty, and out of these ideals must come the constraining 
forces that shall shape growth into true comeliness. 



CHAPTER XIV 
CIVICS 

Within the past decade and a half there has been a 
great civic awakening in this country, and as one of its 
results the study of civics is now a requirement in the 
common school curriculum of many states. 

Function of public education. — The Tightness and 
necessity of such requirement are evident, when it is 
remembered what the public schools are for — to make 
good citizens. In so far as education at public expense 
fails to build well the citizenship of the state, it so far 
fails to justify itself as public education. It is most fit- 
ting, then, that in the public school there should be 
specific teaching and studying of civics — the science 
and art of citizenship. 

General method in teaching civics. — Although civics 
touches history most intimately, and depends upon it for 
explanations of the use and development of civic privi- 
leges and functions, yet the subject should not be taught 
historically at first. The beginnings should rather be 
like those of geography, observational and inductive, 
using the material nearest at hand. 

Facts and principles to be illustrated. — And the mate- 
rial for illustrating the fundamental facts of civics is 
abundant in every locality and easy of comprehension. 
The sources of authority, its particular forms, and the 
need of obedience to it, are all essential facts in civics 

2I 5 



2l6 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and should be made the basis of the earliest oral 
teaching. 

It might well seem, at first sight, that the teaching 
should begin with the authority of the parents in the 
family, and with the mutual rights and obligations of 
the home. But, although the home life should be drawn 
upon freely for illustrations of the need of government 
and of the rights and privileges of the individual, yet 
home government has not the same origin and sanction 
as has the authority of the state. Moreover, the exer- 
cise of authority varies so in different homes that exam- 
ples of home duties, privileges, and punishments, widely 
differing in character and purpose, are sometimes con- 
fusing, and lead to undue and undesirable airing of inner 
family life. 

The school the starting point. — The authority of the 
school stands on middle ground between the peculiar 
authority of the home and that of the state, and may 
well serve as the basis of a series of oral lessons, which 
should begin in the second reader grade. 

Lesson Plan in Oral Civics 

I . Special end of the lesson : to teach the source of authority in 
our form of government. 

II. Processes in realizing this end : questions to develop the idea. 
Who was your teacher before I came ? 
Would he have a right to come in here now and tell you what 

to do? 
Would I have had a right to come in while he was your 

teacher and tell you what to do ? Why ? 
How did I get to be your teacher and have the right and duty 

to direct this school? 
How did the trustees get the right to appoint me as teacher? 



civics 217 

Why could not any man or any three men in the district 

appoint me as teacher? 
Who voted for the trustees ? When and where was the voting 

done ? 
Could the people in the next district have voted for trustees 

for this district ? Why ? 
Would I have the right to teach here unless all the trustees 

of this district had said I might ? 



These questions from the teacher and the discussions 
to which they will lead will begin to develop the cen- 
tral idea of the source of civil authority, and will in- 
cidentally arouse interest touching numerous other 
subjects. Thus, out of the first lesson will arise ques- 
tions of what voting is, who may vote, local self-govern- 
ment, majority rule, the responsibilities and duties of 
those who are in office, and the nature of contracts. All 
these find ample illustration in the civil government of 
the school district, and should be discussed in the same 
way as is suggested in the lesson plan outlined above. 
Difficult technicalities should be avoided, and the inter- 
ested questioning of the pupils will show the teacher 
how far he can profitably go in any one direction. 

Essentials of good citizenship. — The essentials of good 
citizenship are a knowledge of the source of authority 
and of the machinery of government ; a moving and 
effective consciousness of personal duty ; and a habit of 
prompt obedience. The knowledge is easy enough to 
impart and acquire ; but the sense of personal and in- 
dividual responsibility, and the habit of ready obedience 
to law, both of which are so indispensable to the safety of 
the community and the state, are matters of slow growth 
and much persistent training. This training should be- 
gin at the first contact of the pupil with the school 



218 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

environment, or rather the training he gets at school 
should be simply a reenforcement and extension of that 
which the best home life gives. 

Even in the oral instruction in the lower grades, 
pupils may be well impressed with the idea — so neces- 
sary to the best citizenship — that the teacher, the 
trustees, the superintendent, and other officers, are not 
put where they are and given the powers they have 
merely to carry out their own arbitrary ideas of what 
should be done, but that each officer or group of officers 
simply represents, and is responsible to, higher authority \ 
— the teacher to the trustees, the trustees to the super- 
intendent or the people, or to both. Intelligent adults, 
even, quite frequently commit the absurdity of indulg- 
ing personal enmity against the particular official who 
executes law against them. 

Another form of responsibility. — Another form of re- 
sponsibility should be dwelt upon also, in these begin- 
nings of the subject — the responsibility of worthily and 
completely discharging all tJie dicties of an official posi- 
tion. Illustrations of the value of faithfulness in the 
discharge of duty by those in positions of trust may be 
drawn from the games of the children. They very 
readily appreciate the work of an energetic umpire, or 
captain, or partisan contestant. And it is easy to bring 
them to a realization of the value to the community of 
the trustee, or superintendent, or teacher, who uses the 
opportunities his position gives him for bettering the 
community. 

When the material nearest at hand has been pretty 
well acquired and assimilated — when the facts with 
which the learners are most in contact have been ex- 
amined and understood, and made to contribute some- 



civics 219 

thing to the growth of civic feeling — then facts a little 
more remote may be taken up. 

In towns and cities the familiar policeman may well 
be made the starting point of further lessons ; in the 
country, the sheriff is perhaps the best known embodi- 
ment of civil authority. Such duties of these officers as 
the pupils know of can be discussed in a series of les- 
sons, which will necessarily touch many things, and 
awaken much curious questioning on the part of the 
children. 

Taxation. — After the pupils have learned somewhat 
about the public officials with whom they are most 
acquainted, — how they came to be in office, and what 
their duties are, — the question of taxation and the use 
of public money may be taken up. These matters may 
be introduced in some such way as follows : — 

Lesson Plan on Taxation 
I. Ends of the lesson. 

(1) To define taxation. 

(2) To show the necessity of taxation. 

II . Processes in realizing these ends : questions developing the ideas. 
The teacher, taking a bit of money from his pocket, says, 
This is my money ; how did I earn it ? 
Who paid it fo me ? 
Where did he get it ? 
Was it his money ? 

Did your fathers or mothers pay any of it ? 
Did everybody pay the same amount ? Why ? 
Do people have to pay money that way every year? Why? 
Who makes them pay it? 
Who says how much they shall pay? 

It will be readily understood that this lesson plan, 
like the others, is meant to be suggestive ; the questions 



220 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

can indicate only a general line of thought and the 
manner of its development. In a lesson like that just 
outlined the teacher will have to give much information, 
using the questions not for "drawing out" so much 
as for the purpose of quickening the receptivity and 
assimilative power of the pupils. It will be well to 
use, illustratively, some tax-receipts ; they will aid in 
concreting the subject. 

The questions of taxation will furnish material for 
several lessons. The specific ends for which public 
money is spent, who spends it, who orders it spent in 
the several ways, and the responsibilities attendant upon 
paying out such money, may all be presented so plainly 
and simply that the pupil will readily seize the points 
with interested comprehension. In towns and cities it 
is very easy to lead the young people to see what direct 
benefits they personally secure from the expenditure of 
the money their parents have paid as taxes, and in what 
ways the benefits may be made greater. 

Legislation. — The work in civics cannot have gone 
so far without having several times involved the idea 
of law and lawmakers. The inquiries will have arisen 
naturally, Who said things should be thus-and-so — that 
this school should be taught ? that taxes should be 
levied ? that they should be spent as* they are ? In an- 
swering such questions there will be found abundant 
opportunity to impress upon the pupils the necessity for 
having intelligent, honest, painstaking lawmakers, and 
to show who is to blame for giving ignorant and 
dishonest men a chance to make laws. Here, again, 
illustrations may be drawn from the experiences of the 
pupils in the home and the school. From lawmaking 
it is natural and easy to return, with enlarged concep- 



CIVICS 221 

tions, to a consideration of the execution of the laws by 
the several officials known to the pupils, and by others 
of whom the teacher can tell them. The talks upon 
these topics will lead to a realization of what law is, 
who makes it, and why it is necessary. The teacher 
can impress the fact that if everybody could behave 
himself there would be need of but few laws. 

Obedience. — Out of such discussions will arise the 
subjects of lawbreaking, and the necessity and Tight- 
ness of obedience to law. Here the familiar facts of 
courthouses and jails will demand attention and furnish 
matter for many oral lessons, in which the teacher will 
not fail to make it plain that jails are only for weak 
people who have not self-control enough to keep out of 
them. 

Suggestions on oral work. — Throughout the oral 
drills the teacher must keep steadily in view the few 
simple and fundamental purposes for which they are 
.given, and must check any tendency to allow the talk 
to drift off into needless details, and irrelevant questions 
that evaporate interest rather than fix it. All oral work 
has to be guarded in this respect, but especially so in 
civics, on account of the many ramifications of the 
subject. 

There should be much more acquisition of facts than 
attempts at philosophizing about them ; " whys " should 
be few and should involve matters within the easy 
grasp of the learners. 

This oral work may extend over three or four years. 
Some of it may be done incidentally, but most of it 
should be done in regular lessons, occurring once or twice 
a week. By the time the pupil reaches the higher gram- 
mar grades, or is ready for the high school, he will be 



222 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

pretty well acquainted with the objective side of civics 
— he has learned that final authority and responsibility, 
in our form of government, rest not only in the people, 
but in the individual ; that law exists to make life and 
property secure ; that every one owes obedience to law 
and service to commonwealth and common health ; and 
that the state may, under certain conditions, take prop- 
erty and even life. So much all American boys and 
girls should learn and learn well by the age of thirteen 
or fourteen. Before that age is reached they should 
have formed also some habits of good citizenship — 
should have learned to make practical application of 
the knowledge gained. For example, they should have 
regard for public property as such — for the school 
buildings and furniture, for the trees along the street, 
for the streets themselves, being careful not to throw 
trash upon sidewalk or pavement. They should learn 
to see in its true light the wrong of trespassing upon 
others in any way, by interference with property, by 
infliction of bodily injury, or by wounding the feelings, 
as in teasing. They should be trained to apply their 
civic knowledge in school government, being permitted 
to govern themselves as a pupil-body, just so far and just 
so long as they can show their ability to be self-governing. 
This plan has been put into successful use, and is worth 
almost any amount of theoretical teaching of civics. 1 

The American school an Americanizer. — Many com- 
munities in the United States are congested with a 
foreign population, not more alien in birth and lan- 
guage than in knowledge of and sympathy with 
American institutions. Such a population is a grave 

1 See Principal Ray's articles in School and Home Education for 
January and February, 1899. 



civics 223 

menace to the integrity and best success of American 
government. It is hardly possible to assimilate the 
ignorant and indifferent adults ; effort must center upon 
the children, and they can be Americanized only through 
the assimilative power of the public schools. In some 
places it has come to be a matter of self-protection and 
self-preservation to the community or state, to in- 
sist on constant and specific teaching in the rights 
and duties of citizenship, and in the machinery of 
government. It is to help in this process of creating 
a sturdy civism that the flag and flag salutes, mock 
elections, and various objective illustrations of popular 
self-government are given such prominence in many 
public schools to-day. To the same purpose, also, do 
various civic experiments with the young contribute, 
such as that of the " George Junior Republic," in New 
York. 1 Since relatively so few of the pupils in the 
public school ever go beyond the grammar grade, the 
necessity is plain for beginning the oral work in civics 
early, and carrying it regularly through five or six grades 
below the high school. 

Text-book work. — The study of a text-book need not 
be begun until the pupil has entered the high school, 
the precise time of taking it up being a question for 
the teacher or superintendent to decide in view of the 
special circumstances of each school. It is much better 
that advanced work in this subject be not begun until 
the pupils have a pretty good general knowledge of 
United States history. 

Topical method. — Like history, civics should be 
studied and taught, in the advanced grades, mainly by 
the topic method. 

1 See Review of Reviews, Vol. 13, and McClure's Magazine, Vol. 9. 



224 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The following arrangement of topics has stood the 
test of actual teaching use : — 

Outline of Civics 

i 1 Theoretical politics. 
i 2 Citizenship. 

i 3 Definition of "citizen." 
2 3 Kinds of citizens. 

i 4 As to nature of their citizenship. 
i 5 Native. 
2 5 Naturalized. 
2 4 As to suffrage. 
i 5 Voters. 

i 6 Who may vote (Federal and state 

requirements) . 
2 6 Duties. 
2 5 Non- voters. 

i 6 Who may not vote. 
2 6 Duties. 
3 3 Problems of citizenship. 

i 4 Property qualifications for suffrage. 
2 4 Educational qualifications for suffrage. 
3 4 Protection of the ballot. 
4 4 City politics. 
2 2 Analyses of constitutions. 

i 3 The Federal Constitution. 

i 4 History of formation and adoption. 
2 4 Provisions or terms. 

i 5 As to the legislative department. 
2 5 As to the judicial department. 
3 5 As to the executive department. 
2 3 The state Constitution. 
3 3 The city (or village) charter. 
2 1 Practical politics : the machinery of government. 
i 2 Political parties. 

i 3 Purposes, or functions. 
2 3 How organized and maintained. 

3 3 Brief histories of the leading parties, and study of 
essential points in their platforms. 



civics 225 



2 2 Primary elections. 
i 3 Purposes. „ 
2 3 By whom held. 
3 3 When and where held. 
4 3 Manner of holding. 
5 3 Legislation concerning. 
3 2 Conventions. 

i 3 As to membership. 

i 4 The "mass" convention. 
i 5 Purposes. 

2 5 How and by whom held. 
3 5 Mode of procedure in. 
2 4 The " delegate" convention. 
i 5 Purposes. 
2 5 How constituted. 
3 5 Kinds. 

i 6 Delegates instructed. 
2 6 Delegates uninstructed. 
2 3 As to territory represented. 
i 4 The county convention. 
I 5 Purposes. 
2 5 By whom called. 







4 5 Mode of work. 






2 4 The district convention. 






3 4 The state convention. 






4 4 The national convention. 


4 2 


Committees. 




1 3 


The county committee. 
i 4 Purposes. 
2 4 How created. 
3 4 Mode of work. 




2 3 


The state central committee. 




3 3 


The national committee. 


5 2 


The 


campaign. 



i 3 The use and abuse of money. 
2 3 The influence of the press. 
3 3 The "stump." 
4 3 Political clubs. 

roark's meth. — 15 



226 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

5 3 The parade. 
6 3 Personal work. 
6 2 Elections. 

i 3 Election of school trustees. 
i 4 When and where held. 
2 4 By whom held : officers of election. 
3 4 Manner of holding. 
4 4 Certifying the election : making returns. 
5 4 Installing the elected official. 

(Election of other officers of county, state, and 
nation may be discussed in the same way.) 
7 2 Legislative bodies. 

i 3 The school board. 
i 4 How organized. 
2 4 Powers and duties. 
3 4 Mode of working. 

(Other legislative bodies may be similarly 
treated, in order. Special study should be 
made of the organization and mode of work 
of the state and national legislatures, and 
particularly of the committees through which 
so much work is now done.) 
8 2 Judicial bodies : courts. 

(Beginning with the nearest or most familiar court, the 
various tribunals may be studied, as to the court offi- 
cials and their duties, and as to the general character 
of business in each court.) 
9 2 Executive processes. 

Adaptability of the outline. — The outline is intended 
to cover the whole field, and to be modified and used 
according to the needs or opportunities of particular 
schools. Thus with a strong advanced class the study 
can be carried deeper into details than with less com- 
petent workers ; in cities, city charters and problems 
of city politics will receive much more attention than 
in country schools. Some topics may be omitted 
entirely, ' and others may be introduced. The outline 



civics 227 

can be adapted to a class just taking up the study of 
the text-book, or can be expanded to meet the needs 
of students of collegiate grade. 

In high school classes it is desirable to introduce a 
few fundamentals of political economy, a study not 
usually given a place in the high school curriculum, 
but which has a good right there, and even lower down. 
No text-book should be used, and the work can be done 
in the civics class, either incidentally or in a few regular 
weekly lessons. The lessons should include the dis- 
cussion of (1) production, (2) distribution, (3) consump- 
tion, and the more important topics growing out of these, 
such as (a) labor, (b) money, (c) necessaries and luxuries. 
In most of these matters a boy or girl of twelve or four- 
teen can see the essentials about as clearly as more ad- 
vanced students, and a few lessons upon the subjects 
suggested above may enable many a pupil, grown to 
manhood without opportunity of further study in school, 
to go safely in the rough times of strikes and lockouts. 

Machinery of government. — But in every case, the 
teaching of civics should result in a clear knowledge 
of the machinery of government, and especially of 
that which is extra-constitutional — that which has 
resulted from carrying constitutional requirements into 
practical effect, but which was not provided for or con- 
templated in the national or earlier state constitutions. 
For example, party organization, the huge mechanism 
of state and national conventions and their controlling 
committees, and the powerful committees of Congress, 
should be well studied. Much of their work, value, and 
danger can be understood even by pupils just entering 
the high school. 

It is a valid criticism upon much of the teaching of 



228 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

civics that it is concerned too exclusively with the theory 
of government, with analysis of — usually — only the 
Federal Constitution, and does not give adequate atten- 
tion to the methods of making the theory effective. 
Every election demonstrates that a man may know 
the provisions of the Constitution thoroughly, and yet 
not know how to cast a legal ballot. 

Apparatus in civics teaching. — In civics, as in every 
other branch, the teaching should be concrete and ob- 
jective. Mention has already been made of illustrative 
material that is available in the primary work. In 
advanced work all this may be used again, and much 
more may be introduced. The teacher should carefully 
classify and preserve numerous clippings, such as calls 
for conventions, election notices, special messages and 
vetoes from governors and president ; copies of ballots, 
of various legal writs, proclamations, passports, — all of 
which appear from time to time in the daily or weekly 
papers. When the state or national legislature is in 
session, copies of bills may be obtained, and the reports 
of legislative proceedings should be studied. Every 
boy and girl of twelve should know the personnel of 
state and national cabinets and courts, and should be 
stimulated to a wholesome interest in public men and 
their work. Enough has already been said to indicate 
the importance of " current events " in the teaching of 
civics ; the value of real news is as great in this subject 
as in history, or even greater. 

Object lessons. — Such experiments as the George 
Junior Republic, adverted to earlier in the chapter, 
have been remarkably successful in the civic training of 
boys and girls taken, in several instances, from the 
midst of conditions most unfavorable to the develop- 



CIVTCS 229 

ment of healthy citizenship. The plan of holding 
model elections has been successfully tried in some city 
schools, and may be used in all. Voting booths are put 
up, ballots prepared, judges and clerks appointed, and 
all the legalities of an election are illustrated in a most 
practical way. To secure the best results from such 
work it should be made as realistic as possible, — pri- 
maries should be held, candidates for some actual 
school office should be nominated, questions of the day 
should be embodied in platforms, and the balloting 
should be done seriously and genuinely. 

One or more grades may also be organized into a 
model legislative body, and bills may be introduced, 
debated, amended, passed, and submitted for signature 
or veto. The bills should be brief and simple, and em- 
body something in which the pupils are genuinely 
interested. The legislative forms followed should be 
those of Congress or state legislature, and the imitation 
should be as exact as possible. 

History and civics. — Advanced civics is a study of 
high value in the training of judgment — the power to 
draw inferences, to perceive relations, and to reach con- 
clusions. Civics taught and studied so as best to realize 
this value is really political history. In the history 
class it will be studied mainly as history ; in the civics 
class, mainly as development of political institutions. 
But the prominent causal relations should be made clear 
in both branches, and the two subjects should be closely 
correlated. The growth of political institutions and 
methods, both constitutional and extra-constitutional, 
is a fascinating thing to study, and should be made 
prominent in civics teaching. As aids in this part of 
the subject, such books as Cooper's " American Poli- 



230 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

tics," Willoughby's " Rights and Duties of American 
Citizenship," Johnston's "American Politics," Nord- 
hoff's " Politics for Young Americans," Strong's " Our 
Country," and Henry's " Voice of the People," will 
prove of high value, and should be in easy reach of 
students and teacher throughout the course. Also, 
copies of original documents, such as the Bill of Rights, 
the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Con- 
federation, and the material found in the " Old South 
Leaflets," will be of great use, both in civics and in 
history. In beginning classes, such books as Forman's 
" First Lessons in Civics," Peterman's " Civil Govern- 
ment," Brooks's " Century Book," and Guerber's " Story 
of the Thirteen Colonies " and " Story of the Great 
Republic" will be found very suitable for side reading. 

In all his teaching of history and civics the tactful 
teacher will, as a matter of course, avoid the obtrusion 
of any partisan bias into the discussions. 

Patriotism. — But knowledge of the theory of gov- 
ernment, of the history of its development, and of its 
practical processes is, like all other knowledge, worth 
nothing unless it passes up into feeling and thus becomes 
kmetic. The real ends of civics teaching are (i) a clear 
knowledge of the processes of our institutions, (2) an 
adequate perception of the opportunities and duties of 
citizenship, and especially (3) a strong and efficient 
motive to the use of opportunity and the discharge of 
duty. It takes all these to make up serviceable, prac- 
tical patriotism. Knowledge is the source of patriotism, 
but feeling is its informing spirit. 

The pupil must be made to feel his citizenship, its 
wonderful privileges, its exacting duties, its demands 
for the best that is in him. He must feel himself a 



civics 231 

part, not only of the community, but of the state and 
nation, — a factor in their growth or degeneracy, a 
sharer in their glory or their shame. He must be so 
taught that as he grows into the full functions of citizen- 
hood he will come to a deeper and ever deepening real- 
ization of the truth that place hunters, oath-breaking 
officials, corrupt courts, and time-serving legislators are 
as genuinely foreign foes — foreign to real American- 
ism — as they that would flaunt their war flags in the 
face of this nation. He must feel that his duty at the 
ballot box is as imperative as on the battlefield, and that 
he can serve his country even more faithfully with the 
secret ballot than with the bayonet. 

The nation is the individual multiplied. — The teacher 
may not forget that his work is with the individual 
pupil, and that the state or nation is only the individual 
multiplied, — that national character is simply the sum 
of individual characters. Indeed, the nation falls some- 
what below the sum of all its parts, and hence the 
greater the need of lifting the individual standard as 
high as possible. We call ourselves a self-governing 
people ; but we cannot make good the claim unless we 
are self-governing individuals. The youthful citizen 
must learn to project himself into the national conscious- 
ness, and feel shame if the nation does what he would 
be ashamed to do, feel pride and honor if the nation 
attains to the ideals toward which he himself is striving. 
The sense of personal responsibility must be quickened, 
so that the citizen shall say of his government, " Why 
do not we . . . ? " instead of — as is so often the way — 
" Why do not they . . . ? " when he wonders with his 
neighbor why the saloons are not closed, or the streets 
swept, or franchises controlled. 



232 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Geography and patriotism. — The teacher has many 
resources upon which to draw in arousing in his pupils 
a sense of participation in, and responsibility for, their 
country's growth and glory. Even that which is least 
essential to the real greatness of the country — its mere 
physical bigness — may be so impressed upon the imag- 
ination as to rouse pride in the sense of common 
ownership. A realization of the achievements and 
possibilities of material development should be made to 
deepen the consciousness of responsibility for the right 
use of resources so limitless. 

History and patriotism. — The culture value of history 
cannot be too often or too strongly urged ; rightly taught 
it can be made to quicken every noble sentiment, and 
none more so than patriotism. Let the boys and girls 
get clear ideas of what splendid men and women have 
done to make this country what it is, and they will thrill 
with pride to have a share in the heritage of glory, and 
with ambition to add to its luster. The country's tri- 
umphs of peace must be thrown into higher relief than 
is usual in school text-books on history. Not the suc- 
cessful wars of the country so much as the nobler facts 
of peace maintained, and growth in peace, should be 
constantly pressed upon the young citizen. 

Geography and history should be specific cures of 
provincialism, and to be rid of this is to grow in the true 
and broader patriotism. 

"Patriotic days." — All young people — and most 
old ones — need frequently to have sentiments objec- 
tively symbolized. For this reason it is well to have, 
occasionally, some special ceremonies, such as the ob- 
servance of "flag day," and of one or two of the more 
important national or state holidays. Birthdays of 



CIVICS 233 

eminent statesmen may also be celebrated. The exer- 
cises should, in every instance, be simple, suggestive, 
and interesting, quickening civic pride and stirring 
emulation. 

Literature and patriotism. — In civics teaching, too, 
literature has its own place as a prime force in reaching 
and stirring the feelings of loyalty and civic pride. Our 
literature is full of appeals to the patriotism of our 
citizens ; in it is embalmed many a deed of public 
valor and of quiet sacrifice of self for the common good. 
And there is a great store of purely civic literature of 
the highest order, from which the teacher can draw with- 
out limit — public documents, speeches and addresses of 
statesmen who have thronged our legislative halls, and 
the state papers of those who have held high places in 
times of national crises. 

The teachers of the country have the keeping of the 
nation in their hands. As they are faithful to their 
trust, so will their pupils grow into men and women the 
integrity and purity of whose private character shall be 
builded into the national life. 



CHAPTER XV 
PHYSIOLOGY 

Value of the study. — The chief value of the study of 
physiology, as it must be carried on under usual limi- 
tations, is informational rather than disciplinary or 
cultural. And it would be difficult to exaggerate this 
informational value ; out of a knowledge of the human 
body as a machine, of the causes of disease, and of the 
conditions of health, will come a realization of the 
sacredness of the body and of life, and an intelligent 
cooperation with natural forces in the improvement of 
sanitation and the suppression of disease. 

The lessons of modern sanitary and medical science 
all teach that nearly every form of disease is due to a 
weakened vitality, to uncleanliness, or to some specific 
disregard of the simplest hygienic laws. It is now also 
more clearly recognized than ever that it is the duty of 
the individual and of the community to raise the vitality 
of the race through cleanly and hygienic living — 
through physical righteousness. 

It is looked upon as a disgrace to an enlightened 
community, to-day, to permit an epidemic of typhoid 
fever, or diphtheria, or any other ailment that is known 
to be a "dirt disease." There are many disturbances 
of health that are due to the ignorance or carelessness 
of the individual ; and people need to be ashamed of 
being sick, instead of, as is too generally true now, 

234 



PHYSIOLOGY 235 

looking upon sickness as a " providential visitation " 
which they should humbly and almost thankfully 
accept. 

If the young citizen be taught the causes of disease, 
the care of his own health, and his duty to his neighbor, 
he will grow up to keep not only himself and his prem- 
ises clean, but his street and his town. 

Use in physical education. — But the knowledge of 
physiology should not be turned to preventive uses 
only ; the abnormal phases of life must not receive too 
much emphasis. A knowledge of physiology is of great 
value in positive physical education, in building up the 
sound body which the sound mind is to use, through all 
the years of its delightful activity, as its ready instru- 
ment. 

In teaching the subject care must be taken to make 
such intimate personal application of it to each indi- 
vidual that not only shall he have no excuse of igno- 
rance for any physical sin, but shall take pride in a 
healthy body as a part of his capital in life, as a mar- 
velous machine which keeps itself in repair. 

Throughout the course, but especially in the lower 
grades, the greatest emphasis must be laid upon hygi- 
ene — the art of preserving, or creating, health. No 
opportunity should be lost of showing the connection be- 
tween vigor and sanity of body and vigor and sanity of 
mind. Even quite young pupils can be brought to under- 
stand the necessity for pure air, cleanliness, warmth, the 
upright position ; and they can readily perceive the rela- 
tion between these and clear thinking, good lessons, and 
personal comfort. The result of a right teaching of 
the subject everywhere would be to make the coming 
generations stronger-hearted, stronger-lunged, clearer of 



236 METHOD IN ED U CAT 10 IV 

brain, cleaner of blood, lither of limb. The teachers of 
the country have this matter very largely in their hands. 
But they must not forget that knowledge alone is not pro- 
tective — many a physician is a physical wreck because 
his knowledge was not protective. Knowledge must be 
transmuted into feeling, into motive, and the individual 
must realize that to break a physiological law is to sin 
— that all natural law is God's law. 

Reverence for natural law. — Physiology, as a form of 
nature-study, affords especial opportunities of showing 
the fixedness of natural law, and the wisdom of obedi- 
ence to it. In no other subject can there be found such 
personal illustrations of the value of a right regard for 
law, or of punishment for its violation. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PRIMARY WORK 

Oral objective instruction. — Instruction in physiology 
should begin in the first grade, in a very simple and 
elementary form, and should, of course, be objective 
and oral. 

For this work the children themselves and their daily 
functions of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, consti- 
tute all the apparatus needed. In many cases it will be 
found advisable to begin with such simple matters as 
distinguishing between right and left hand, the names 
of the fingers, heel, instep, elbow, wrist, etc. The point 
for the teacher to hold in mind is, to begin a little short 
of where the child's previously accumulated knowledge 
ends. 

Lesson topics. — The teacher should carefully plan a 
series of lessons, suited to the advancement of the 
pupils, which shall cover the topics here suggested : — 



PHYSIOLOGY 237 

I. General Anatomy. 

(1) The head, trunk, extremities, and the more obvious 

subdivisions of each. 

(2) Bone, muscle, skin, blood, with names of a very few of 

the most important bones and muscles and their 
mechanical adjustments and functions. 

(3) Names and locations of the chief vital organs. 

(4) Names of the sense organs and such of their parts as 

may be made objects of direct observation. 

II. General Physiology. 

(1) Functions of the body as a whole — to grow (nutrition), 

to work, to form the basis of mind. 

(2) Functions of special organs, — as teeth, tongue, hands, 

lungs, and the several sense organs. 

III. General Hygiene. 

(1) When, what, how, to eat and drink. 

(2) Care of the teeth, hair, and nails. 

(3) Hygiene of sleep, rest, exercise. 

(4) Hygiene of the eyes. 

(5) Prevention of disease, — necessity for cleanliness ; avoid- 

ance of overheating and colds. 

(6) "Emergency hygiene, 1 ' — -what to do for one's self or 

others in case of accidents, such as stings, burns, cuts, 
sprains, fractures. 

(7) The hygiene of nerve excitants, such as alcohol, tobacco, 

and various other drugs. 

These topics, it is evident, cover about the whole 
ground ; they should be carried only so far into detail 
as the time and the advancement of the pupils will 
admit. The topics here given should all be discussed, 
in some form, by the time the pupils are ready to take 
up text-book work in the subject, which need not be 
until the first year of the high school. Not too sharp a 
discrimination is to be made, in this elementary teach- 



238 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

ing, between the three phases of the subject — anatomy, 
physiology, hygiene. 

The teacher may hold the distinction as clear as he 
likes in his own mind — and it should be quite clear 
there — but he need not and should not harass the 
learners with the logic of the subject. 

Some anatomy should be taught. — Although the teach- 
ing in the primary grades should be mainly in hygiene, 
yet even the beginner can learn intelligently somewhat 
of anatomy, and needs an elementary knowledge of it 
in order to understand the facts of hygiene. 

External anatomy is best learned with the pupil him- 
self as an objective illustration. The general divisions 
of the body, the skin, muscles, bones, joints, are all 
readily learned in simple lessons on the pupils' own 
bodies. 

Inner anatomy may be illustrated sufficiently, in coun- 
try schools, by the usual contents of the lunch boxes. 
For example, the leg of a chicken furnishes material 
for several lessons on bone structure, joints, tendons, 
structure and attachment of muscles, skin, and hair 
(feather) follicles. Under the too frequent method of 
grinding physiology out of a text-book, a pupil might 
have chicken or beef every day, and not know he was 
eating muscle. 

On the farms children have frequent opportunities to 
observe the anatomy of the nutritive system in animals 
killed for food ; in cities plenty of illustrative material 
may be got from any meat shop. Much has been said 
about dissecting, and the matter, so far as primary work 
is concerned, seems still to be undecided by any great 
weight of authority on either side. But if all arguments 
are given their due weight, the conclusion is against 



PHYSIOLOGY 239 

regular dissections in primary grades. All the knowl- 
edge needed by pupils in these grades can be easily 
gained without any more anatomizing in the school than 
an occasional cutting up of some part obtained from the 
home kitchen or the meat shop. 

General physiology. — In the primary grades only 
such work in physiology proper is necessary as will 
give a very general knowledge of the functions of the 
more important and easily observed organs. It is 
enough for the pupils below the high school to know 
broadly the functions of the sense organs, the muscles, 
the skin, and the nutritive system. What they do learn 
they should learn clearly and definitely; but they do 
not need to learn minutely. 

Hygiene. — The work in hygiene, however, should be 
careful and pretty thorough. It is not possible that 
reasons can be profitably given to children for all the 
hygienic rules that they should learn and practice ; 
somewhat must be given on authority. 

It should be the aim of the teacher to train the pupils 
into hygienic habits, so that the boy or girl ready to 
enter the high school will almost automatically do those 
things that are conducive to health. 

The subjects that should receive especial attention are 
eating and drinking, care of the eyes, preservation of 
the teeth, cleanliness, exercise and rest, and taking cold. 

To illustrate the suggestions offered in the preceding 
paragraphs here follow some lesson plans : — 

Lesson Plan on Joints 
I. Ends of the lesson. 

(1) To cultivate acquisition through observation. 

(2) To stimulate to further observation. 

(3) To give some knowledge of the joints of the body. 



240 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(i) Have a pupil stand before the class, and bend and 
straighten his arm a few times. Other pupils may, 
of course, do likewise if they wish. 

(2) Ask — clearly and interestedly — the following or simi- 

lar questions : — 

In how many places can John bend his arm, between 

shoulder and wrist? 
In how many between his shoulder and first 

knuckles ? 
How many bends can he make between his shoulder 

and the end of his middle finger? 
Why can't he bend his arm between his shoulder 

and elbow, or between his elbow and wrist ? 
Where are some other joints in the body? 
Are there any joints between the head and the 

hips? 
Where? 
What if we did not have a joint at the elbow? or at 

the knee ? 
What if we did not have any joints at all? 

(3) Show the hip joint of a chicken, or beef. The pupils 

are led to point out the enlarged ends, the rounded, 
smooth surface, and the hard, elastic covering. Ques- 
tions are answered. 

(4) The class is dismissed, after being asked to be ready 

next time to tell what joints can bend in more than 
one way. 

Other exercises along this line will fix the terms " flex- 
ion," "extension," "ligament," "cartilage." 

Illustrations may be drawn from familiar machines. 
It should be shown that the body is a machine, with 
levers (bones) and ropes (tendons), and that all these 
need care as do the parts of any other machine. 

The series of lessons on joints may be fittingly closed 
by a special calisthenic drill. 



PHYSIOLOGY 241 



Lesson Plan on the Uses of the Teeth 

I. Ends of the lesson: The same general ends as before, and to 
fix and make definite the pupil's knowledge of the teeth's 
functions. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

( 1) Procure, beforehand, an incisor and a molar tooth, human 

or other. 

(2) Show these to the class, letting the pupils see them 

plainly, and question as follows : — 

Which of these is a front tooth ? which a jaw tooth ? 
What differences do you see between them? (Bring 

these out clearly as to root and crown.) 
Have you teeth like these ? 
Why are the front teeth shaped thus ? 
What do you do with your jaw teeth ? 
Why do the molar teeth need more roots than the 

incisor teeth? 
What else are the teeth good for, besides biting and 

chewing? (Bring out how they assist in talking 

and in preserving the shape of the face.) 

(3) The pupils are asked to be able to say, next time, 

whether a cat has the same kind of jaw teeth as a boy, 
and to try to find out why there is a difference, if there 
is one. 

Lesson Plan on Exercise 

(This will come after some informational lessons on nutrition, the uses of 
the blood, and the muscles.) 

I. Ends of the lesson: the same general ends as before, and to 
instruct in the hygiene of exercise. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) Ask the children to sit perfectly still for two minutes by 

the clock. They will hardly accomplish it. 

(2) Then ask : — 

Is it easy to sit quite still? Why? 
roark's meth. — 16 



242 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

This will elicit various answers ; among them, usually 
will be the correct one, in some form, that the arms 
and legs get to going of themselves, and feel better 
when they are moving. The application can be made 
that the muscles get 'hungry for exercise, just as the 
stomach gets hungry for food, and that they ought, 
therefore, to be exercised, as the stomach ought to be 
fed. 

The next question by the teacher may be : — 

Does the heart beat faster, or just as fast, after you have 
been playing some running game ? 
• The answer to this will lead to a simple discussion of 
the removal of waste and the repair of tissue in the 
body. 

The last leading question may be : — 

How do you feel when you have played too hard and too 
long? 

The answer to this will afford opportunity to show that 
the muscles tell us when they have had enough exer- 
cise, and that exercise should be neither too violent 
nor too prolonged, nor confined to one set of muscles. 
The danger that tissue will be wasted more rapidly 
than the waste can be gotten rid of should be brought 
out. 

The plan outlined above contains matter that, with 
proper preparation, may be condensed into one lesson 
or expanded into a good many, according as the work 
is with less advanced pupils, and is to be, therefore, 
largely informational, or is to cultivate the thought 
powers of more advanced ones, as well as to give them 
information. There are opportunities for many sharp, 
stimulating "whys," in such a lesson or series of lessons 
with bright-minded boys and girls. 

Text-books. — These lessons are to be wholly oral in 
the lower four grades ; above the fourth some simple 
elementary text may be used, more as a reference book 



PHYSIOLOGY 243 

than as a text-book, and without any attempt at formal 
recitations in the subject. 

IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 

When the subject is taken up in the high school the 
work may be directed by the following suggestive out- 
line, which is adaptable to the most general or to the 
most minute study. It may be used for the study of 
the human body exclusively, or for work in comparative 
biology. 

Analytical Outline by Systems 

i 1 Supportive System. 

i 2 Skeleton. 

i 3 Bones. 

i 4 Anatomy of bones. 

i 5 Gross anatomy. 

i 6 Bones of the head. 

i 7 Cranial. 

i 8 The frontal bone. 

* * * * 

2 7 Facial. 

* * * * 

2 6 Bones of the trunk. 
* * * * 

3 6 Bones of the extremities. 

i 7 Of the upper extremities. 

2 7 Of the lower extremities. 

* * * * 

2 5 Articulations. 

i 6 Kinds and characteristics. 

2 6 Special anatomy of joints. 
3 5 Minute anatomy. 

i 6 Parts of a bone. 

(Processes, periosteum, canals, etc.) 



244 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

2 4 Physiology of bones. 

i 5 Formation and growth. 
2 5 Functions (uses). 
3 4 Hygiene of bones. 
2 3 Cartilages. 
3 3 Ligaments. 
2 2 Muscles. 

(These are to be discussed under the same general head- 
ings as bones.) 
2 1 Assimilative System. 

i 2 Digestive : Alimentary canal. 
i 3 Anatomy. 
2 3 Physiology. 
3 3 Hygiene. 
2 2 Circulatory. 

* * * * 

3 2 Respiratory. 

4 2 Secretory organs, other than those accessory to digestion. 
3 1 Neural System. 
i 2 Anatomy. 

i 3 Central organs : Brain, spinal cord, ganglia. 

2 3 Connecting organs : Nerves. 

3 3 Peripheral organs : Special sense organs. 
2 2 Physiology. 



3 2 Hygiene. 



Synthetic Outline 



i 1 Cells. 

i 2 Structure. 
2 2 Function. 
2 1 Tissues. 

i 2 The blood. 

i 3 Structure. 
2 3 Function. 
2 2 The epithelium. 
i 3 Structure. 
2 3 Function. 
* * 

3 1 Organs. 

* * * * 

4 1 Systems. 



PHYSIOLOGY 245 

Using the outlines. — The purpose of an outline is to 
give teacher and pupils a clear, connected view of the 
whole subject, and to show the relations of its parts to 
one another. The aim is to strengthen the grasp on the 
matter as a whole. 

Except with the most advanced classes the outline 
by systems should be presented first, conformably to 
the natural method by which the mind sets about learn- 
ing any new thing. Only in the most advanced work 
and with classes having a fair general knowledge of the 
subject, should the synthetic outline be used. The 
first lesson, with pupils old enough to use the outline as 
a means of study, should be such a discussion of the 
subject, skillfully conducted by the teacher, as will result 
in pupils grasping the idea of the three systems, their 
functions, and relative importance. Careful and stimu- 
lating questioning will not only get the pupils themselves 
to state the ideas expressed by the terms "supportive," 
"assimilative," and "neural," but will even lead them 
to suggest these terms. This sort of questioning, lead- 
ing the pupils to develop thought for themselves, takes 
more time and more teaching skill than to give a ready- 
made outline or assign a lesson out of the book, but 
the results are incomparably more worth while. 

It will be seen that the outlines here given are simply 
skeletons ; the completeness with which they are to be 
filled out is to be determined by the teacher, in the light 
of his opportunities and his pupils' capacity for such 
work. 

Technical names and functions. — There should be no 
hesitation about requiring the learning of technical 
names from the first. There will be little or no diffi- 
culty with them, if their etymological meaning is learned 



246 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

from some good unabridged dictionary. As a rule, the 
etymological meaning indicates the function of the thing 
named, and function, or use, is one of the surest and 
strongest associational bonds. The meanings of such 
words as "sphenoid," "vomer," "supinator," "biceps," 
etc., readily pin together in the memory the location, 
use, and peculiarities of the bones and muscles named 
by those terms. This simple matter of having the 
students look up the derivation of the technical names 
is of too great importance to be neglected for any 
reason. 

TEACHING BIOLOGY 

Time is apt to be ill spent in any attempt to teach 
biology, in high schools, except in its narrower sense 
as the life-history of some animal or plant, which must 
be studied by direct observation. To such teaching the 
outlines above given will be found very adaptable, with 
slight modifications. Through their use in the study of 
animal or plant physiology the correlations of all living 
things can be shown, and a beginning can be made in 
comparative biology. 

All teaching and studying of physiology or biology 
should be so directed as to result in a reverence for life 
that shall deepen as knowledge increases. 



CHAPTER XVI 

ENGLISH GRAMMAR 

A few years ago, one of the outward swings of the 
pedagogical pendulum carried grammar, as a separate 
study, out of the curriculum of many schools. For a 
while a so-called "grammar" was taught, rather inci- 
dentally, in language lessons. Training in correct 
sentence building has a firmer place than ever, to-day, 
in language work in the first years of school ; but the 
inevitable return swing of the pendulum has brought 
back grammar as a technical study. It is as excellent 
a mental discipline as arithmetic, and cannot be dis- 
pensed with. It is sometimes claimed that English is 
a " grammarless tongue " ; but there must be some gen- 
eral laws or usages of sentence construction in English, 
as in every other language, and it is the business of 
grammar to discover and formulate these laws. It is 
true, there is very little inflection of English words, but 
grammar is by no means concerned with inflection only, 
even in the case of the highly inflected tongues. 

Definition. — The correct definition of grammar as 
"the science of the sentence" should serve to establish 
its true place and function as a school study. The 
work done in language lessons is not grammar, because 
it is training in an art — the art of building sentences 
and paragraphs. But this training in the art of the 
sentence in the lower grades is a prerequisite to the 

247 



248 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

best work in technical grammar in the higher grades. 
A discussion of it and how it leads to grammar proper 
will be found in Chapter XVIII. 

What grammar includes. — Grammar, being the 
science of the sentence, is concerned with nothing 
beyond the sentence. It has to do only with the ques- 
tion whether a given sentence is syntactically correct. 
With the building of sentences into paragraphs, and 
with their rhythm and flow, grammar has nothing to do. 
It is a grievous misconception of the function of gram- 
mar to class it, as is sometimes done, with expressional 
studies. Expression is an art, grammar a science. A 
knowledge of technical grammar does not save one from 
flagrant solecisms in speaking and writing. Such 
knowledge is an aid to correct expression, but it in no 
wise cultivates the power of expression. 

One grave fault of the older text-books was that they 
undertook to include orthography, orthoepy, and 
prosody, in the province of grammar. Orthography 
and orthoepy belong to the spelling-book and the dic- 
tionary, and prosody belongs to rhetoric ; they have no 
place in grammar. The subjects legitimately belonging 
to grammar are diagraming, analysis, and parsing ; and 
they should be taken up in the order here shown. 

Time to begin. — The study of technical grammar 
should begin not earlier than the fifth year of school, 
and preferably a year or two later than that. The 
pupils, by the time they take up the text-book in the 
subject, should have learned to recognize quickly the 
parts of speech in their common uses, should be able 
to discriminate between the subject and the predi- 
cate of any ordinary sentence, and should have a 
pretty ready acquaintance with the phrase and the 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 249 

clause. All these things they can learn simply and 
naturally without knowing that they are preparing for 
grammar. 

Diagraming first. — Diagraming should be introduced 
first, — whether the text-book used places it first or not, 
— and should be drilled upon until the pupils have con- 
siderable mechanical facility in the handling of the dia- 
gram. Diagraming should come first because it is 
concrete and objective, and because it is analytic in its 
process. It necessitates a taking apart of the sentence, 
and pictures the relations of the parts to one another ; 
at the same time, it does not require a detailed analysis 
of the sentence, and so naturally stands first in the 
operations grammar is designed to teach. Before dia- 
graming is undertaken the pupils should have learned 
what are the essential elements of a sentence — subject 
and predicate — and what adjective, objective, and ad- 
verbial modifiers, or elements, are. So much may 
easily be learned and diagraming begun before the text- 
book is taken up. 

The simpler the better. — Diagraming is as useful an 
aid to the study of technical grammar as the written 
solution is to the study of arithmetic. The mechanism 
of the diagram should be very simple, lending itself to 
easy representation on blackboard or tablet. The dia- 
grams given on page 250 by way of illustration, are, 
with very slight modifications, such as are used in 
Holbrook's Grammar. 

The first few lessons should show the evolution of 
the diagram, for the different kinds of sentences, from 
the simplest form. Sentence and diagram should de- 
velop together. These suggestions may be illustrated 
thus : — 



250 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

(i) Boys play. $ B ° ys 
( play. 

(2) Boys play marbles. 5 ,°^ s , 

( play I marbles. 

(3) All boys play marbles in the spring. S ^ s I 

< play marbles 

( in spring. | the 

(4) Henry is sick. \ Uem y, 

( is \ sick. 

(5) Henry is not violently sick. -3 . ™. . 

VJ/ J < is \ sick. I violently 

Hnot 

(6) His parents, who were themselves poor laborers, wanted him 
to become a lawyer. 

rHis 
f parents, J ( who | themselves 
j [ ( were \ laborers, | poor 

I wanted | to become \ lawyer. | a 
I him 

(7) When they considered the matter they decided to go. 

f they 

j f to go. 

[ decided j t they 

I \ considered j When , , 
( matter | the 

(8) It is not necessary for us to remain longer, 
(for) ( us 

to remain ( longer. 

(It) 
is \ necessary 
L ~]not 

(9) The older son went to college, and the younger one entered 
a business career. 

f r (The 

I son ] u 
J ( older 

{ went I to college, 

and 

, (the 

f one -j 



younger 
entered | career. 



( busi 



ness 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 251 

It is plain that the particular form of diagram is of 
no great importance, provided only it is simple enough 
not to confuse. 

Analysis. — As soon as some facility has been ac- 
quired in diagraming easy sentences, oral analysis 
should be begun. This should at first be very general 
and simple, consisting mainly in naming the essential 
elements of sentences and a few of the subordinate 
modifiers classed as to function — adverbial, adjective, 
etc. At this point may be begun a careful drill upon 
the formation and uses of phrases and clauses. Practice 
in analysis should continue until the pupils can give a 
complete, detailed description of the sentence and its 
elements. The form of analysis should be really analyti- 
cal, proceeding from wholes to parts. A complete 
analysis will describe the sentence, as a whole, then 
the complex subject — noting the simple subject and 
each modifier — and, last, the complex predicate, and 
its separable elements. 

Value of analysis. — The careful analysis of sentences 
is as important as the oral explanation of a written 
solution in mathematics. It enables the teacher to test 
the accuracy, fullness, and originality of the pupils' 
knowledge, and gives a specific and valuable training 
in logical thought and accurate expression. Technical 
grammar is elementary logic ; and analysis of sentences 
is very helpful in clarifying thought, and in testing 
ability to think straight. 

The chief value of grammar as a disciplinary study 
lies in the fact that it deals with the instrument of 
thought itself. Ability to analyze or parse is conditioned 
upon ability to read understandingly ; and, conversely, 
anything that can be read can be diagramed, analyzed, 



252 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and parsed. This should be carefully borne in mind, 
and pupils should not be called upon to analyze or 
parse what they cannot understand. Sentences should 
be discussed as to their meaning, before their constit- 
uent words are parsed. 

Parsing. — Diagraming and analysis deal with sen- 
tences as wholes, and with their proximate elements. 
Parsing carries the analysis of the sentence structure 
to the ultimate elements — the words. Grammar is 
almost wholly analytical; the corresponding synthetic 
study is composition. 

Parsing consists in classifying, describing, and con- 
struing words in sentences, and of these three pro- 
cesses the last is the essential one. It takes but little 
training to enable even young pupils intelligently to 
classify and describe the several "parts of speech," in 
their ordinary uses ; it is very easy for the teacher and 
pupils to drop into the rigmarole of " John is a noun 
because it is a name, a proper noun because it is the 
name of an individual," etc. Perhaps nowhere to-day 
is such gibberish gone through in the name of parsing. 
Freedom from it is one good result of the revolt against 
book grammar. 

The great defect of the older manner of parsing was 
its lack of emphasis on the construction of words, and 
its too great emphasis on rules. As a matter of fact, 
the less attention paid to rules as such, in grammar as 
in arithmetic, the better. A rule in grammar is depend- 
ent on construction and both depend upon function. 
Hence the necessity of considering grarhmar as a science, 
and studying and teaching it inductively, as other 
sciences are studied. The functions of words cannot 
be determined a priori ; they can be known only through 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 253 

a study of their uses in oral and written sentences. A 
word may, according to the use made of it, be any part 
of speech, and may have almost any construction. 

Literature in place of " rules.' ' — The text-book of 
grammar, then, should devote the space usually given 
to rules, and as much more as possible, to copious ex- 
tracts from the best literature, standard and recent. 
These extracts should be the principal object and basis 
of study, and pupils should be trained to generalize 
from them, and from examples outside the text-book, 
such definitions and rules as may be necessary. A text- 
book in grammar is best used as a reference book, while 
the actual study is a study of sentence construction in 
representative literature. 

It is only by such work that idiom can be properly 
studied. Idiom is the very life of a language, and yet 
is the thing that is least subject to rules. It is in their 
treatment of idiom that all our grammar text-books are 
weakest and most deficient. 

The following lesson plans may serve to illustrate 
the method of inductive study of words and construc- 
tions : — 

Lesson Plan on Expletives 

I. Ends of the lesson. 

(1) To teach the expletive as a part of speech. 

(2) To teach its function and construction. 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

(1) Write the following sentences — or similar ones — on 
the blackboard : — 

1 . I fear that your getting wet will make you ill. 

2. It is evident from the man's face that he is reliable. 

3. The report that the bank had closed was false. 

4. It is not necessary for you to remain longer. 



254 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

5. There are forty pupils in attendance to-day. 

6. The Japanese head rest, or pillow, is made of wood. 

(2) By questioning and discussion draw from the pupil that 

" that " in the first, second, and third sentences, 
"it" in the second, "it 11 and "for' 1 in the fourth, 
"there" in the fifth, and "or" in the sixth, are 
words unnecessary to the sense. Give the term 
" expletive " as applying to these words. 

(3) By further questioning and illustration lead the pupils to 

see that these words are used merely to make the 
flow of the sentence smoother, and have no real 
syntactical relations to the other words, that is, they 
are independent in construction. 
The lesson should close with examples written by the 
pupils, illustrating expletives and their uses. 

Lesson Plan on the Infinitive Mode 

I. Ends of the lesson. 

(1) To show the infinitive as an infinite form — that is, un- 

limited by the person and number of its subject. 

(2) To show that the subject of the infinitive is always in the 

objective case. 
(Before this lesson is reached the pupils should have 
learned that the infinitive is a verb, and that its 
most obvious sign is the prefix " to," expressed or 
omitted.) 

II. Processes in realizing these ends. 

( 1) Place on the board several sentences like the following : — 

1. He found himself to be too ill for the work. 

2. Their friends desire them to remain longer. 

3. He desires me to come away early. 

4. I wish you to go for my rain coat. 

(2) Lead the class through the development indicated be- 

low : — 
Name the infinitives in these four sentences. 
How do you tell that they are infinitives ? 
What is the subject of each of these infinitives? 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 255 

What are the grammatical person and number of " him- 
self" ? of "me" ? of "you" ? 

What difference do you find between the infinitives 
and the other verb in 2 and 3, besides the 
sign "to"? (Bring out the fact that "desire" 
changes form according to the number of the 
subject, while the infinitives do not. When this 
is seen, have the pupils make several other sen- 
tences to illustrate it.) 

What is the case of each subject of the infinitives, in 
the numbered sentences and those you have just 
written ? 

Supply the subjects for the infinitives in these sen- 
tences : — 
She wants to find her book. 
They used it to stop the boat. 
I waited to hear the result. 

In what case are the subjects you have supplied? 

What two things have you learned from studying all 
these sentences ? 

In the practical working of this lesson plan — or any 
other — only the general line laid down can be 
followed; the questions, after the first few, depend 
upon the answers given. 

The subject in outline. — To aid in the study of 
grammar the following outline may be developed, and 
built up in such detail as may seem best. Except with 
the most advanced students, a topic should be studied 
before the formal outline of that topic is made, — thus, 
diagraming should be studied before it is outlined, and 
so with analysis and parsing. 

Following this plan, the outlining becomes an excel- 
lent review of the several subjects. The arrangement 
of material in the outline should be, as much as possible, 
the work of the students. 



256 METHOD /AT EDUCATION 

Outline of English Grammar 

i 1 Preliminary Definitions. (These should be arrived at induc- 
tively, or at least copiously and clearly illustrated.) 
i 2 A word is a syllable or combination of syllables, written or 

spoken as the sign of an idea. 
2 2 A phrase is a group of related words, containing no subject 

or predicate. 
3 2 A clause is a group of related words, containing a subject 

and predicate, but not completely expressing a thought. 
4 2 A sentence is a group of related words, containing at least 
one subject and one predicate, and completely expressing 
a thought. 

i 3 Kinds of sentences. 
i 4 As to structure. 
2 4 As to mode of statement. 
2 3 Elements of sentences. 

i 4 Principal, or essential, elements. 
i 5 Subject. 
2 5 Predicate. 
2 4 Subordinate, or non-essential, elements. 
i 5 As to modification of base. 
i 6 Simple elements. 
2 6 Complex elements. 
2 5 As to function of base. 
i 6 Adjective elements. 
2 6 Adverbial elements. 
3 6 Objective elements. 
4 6 Subjective elements : an element 
whose base is the subject of an 
infinitive verb. 
3 5 As to structure of base. (Holbrookes 
Grammar.) 
i 6 First class: an element whose base 

is a word. 
2 6 Second class : an element whose base 
is an infinitive or prepositional 
phrase. 
3 6 Third class : an element whose base 
is a clause. 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 257 

2 1 Diagraming. 

(Drill may be given in several of the best known systems, after 
one is thoroughly learned. Pupils should learn to read a 
diagramed sentence readily, and to analyze and parse from 
the diagram.) 
3 1 Parsing. 

i 2 The noun. 

i 3 Kinds of nouns. 

2 3 Properties or modifications of nouns. 

3 3 Constructions of nouns. 

i 4 In the nominative case. 

i 5 Dependent constructions. 
2 5 Independent constructions. 
2 4 In the objective case. 

* * * * 
3 4 In the possessive case. 

* * * * 
2 2 The verb. 

i 3 Kinds of verbs. 

2 3 Properties or modifications of verbs. 
3 3 Conjugation. 
4 3 Inflection. 
5 3 Constructions of verbs. 
i 4 In the finite modes. 
2 4 In the infinite modes. 
(The other parts of speech should be discussed under simi- 
lar topics.) 

Applied grammar. — Grammar is too often considered 
by the pupils as "dry" and of little practical value. 
Such an objection is frequently valid, in some degree, 
for the subject is generally presented to students too 
young to perceive its disciplinary value ; and frequently 
no pains is taken to apply the principles and induc- 
tions of grammar in the everyday speech and reading 
of the pupils. 

If the principle of use is valid (Chapter III., Principle 

roark's meth. — I 7 



258 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

VII.), then, from the first lesson, practical applications 
should be made of what is learned in technical gram- 
mar. Examples for correction, for instance, should be 
drawn from the daily speech of the pupils — which will 
furnish an abundant supply — rather than from the 
manufactured " false syntax " found in some grammar 
text-books. At first, the teacher should quietly observe 
and jot down, for use in the class, the misuses of words 
and the wrongly constructed sentences of the pupils. 
It is well to make the criticisms personal, the teacher 
saying to the class, for example, " I heard Henry say 
to-day ' I saw them men myself ; ' what should he have 
said ? Why ? " Soon, without being told or especially 
encouraged to do so, the pupils will begin to give exam- 
ples of misuses which they have heard one another fall 
into. So long as this mutual criticism is friendly and 
right-spirited, — and the teacher must see to that, — the 
effect will be excellent. 

When a pupil's ear becomes sensitive to grammatical 
inaccuracies, he is in a fair way to overcome his own 
early habits of incorrect speech. 

Analysis and parsing in reading and literature. — The 
lessons learned in the grammar class should also be 
applied and amply illustrated in the regular reading 
exercises of the pupils. The teacher must look after 
the syntax of the pupils' written work in all branches, 
just as he does after their spelling, and good or bad 
syntax should count in the estimate of such work. 
Even the written statements of problems and theorems 
will afford opportunities for criticism upon applied 
grammar. The pupils' eyes, as well as ears, must be 
made sensitive to solecisms. The grammar text-book 
should be retained within easy reach, even in the 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 



259 



advanced classes in English literature, and should be 
frequently used. To pupils in the fourth or fifth reader, 
unaccustomed to such drill, it will be a revelation to 
find that there is a real connection between grammar 
and the reading matter in their readers or in their 
favorite storybooks. And it will be quite as much a 
revelation to most high school or college students of 
English literature to find how little grammar they 
learned from the text-book, and how much they can 
learn from Lowell, or Carlyle, or Milton. 

By an occasional close grammatical analysis of a few 
sentences, taken fresh from the reading matter immedi- 
ately in hand, the literary taste is made more discrimi- 
nating, the logical faculty is given valuable exercise, 
and the dead-and-dry bones of technical grammar are 
clothed upon and the subject made vital and energizing. 



CHAPTER XVII 
NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 

Less time and more arithmetic. — It has long enough 
been conceded that too much time is given to arithmetic, 
and that the results are too meager. Various remedies 
have been suggested, — none better than those outlined 
in the reports of the Committee of Ten and the Com- 
mittee of Fifteen. These remedies are (i) to cut out 
of the arithmetic course all work that legitimately be- 
longs to algebra, or to apply algebraic methods in ad- 
vanced arithmetic ; (2) to cut out all problems that are 
good only as a mental gymnastic, with no value appli- 
cable in everyday matters of business ; (3) to give much 
more attention than has so far been given to secur- 
ing clearness of solution (analysis) and quickness of 
operation. 

A full discussion of these points belongs to educa- 
tional management, and would fall under the head of 
curriculum making ; but somewhat should be said upon 
them here, since method is concerned also with the 
what and the hozv much. 

Algebra in arithmetic. — Many of the problems in 
some of the most widely used text-books are algebraic 
in character, rather than arithmetical. It is a waste 
of time to use a dull tool when a sharp one is at hand, 
and all such problems should be solved by algebraic 
processes. 

260 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 26 1 

Some of the later arithmetics introduce elementary 
algebra as such, and the idea seems to be a good one. 
The best principle for the guidance of the teacher, in 
the use of any text-book on arithmetic, is, solve by arith- 
metic when the problem is arithmetical ; solve by algebra, 
or wholly omit, problems that are algebraic. To make 
the principle clear, it may be further said that every 
problem should be considered algebraic that can be 
solved more readily and simply by algebraic processes 
than by arithmetical ones. 

Arithmetical conundrums. — One of the chief values 
of arithmetic as a school study is the mental discipline 
it affords. This is true, however, or should be made 
true, of every subject in the public school curriculum. 
But in no other subject as much as in arithmetic is 
"mental gymnastic" made an excuse for wasting the 
pupil's energy upon material whose only value is that 
it affords exercise in the tricks of the number contor- 
tionist. Such tricks are not without benefit, certainly, 
but equally as good exercise as they afford can be had 
from problems that are drawn directly from the real 
business of the household or the market. Only such 
problems should find a place in a text-book on arith- 
metic, and all arithmetical conundrums should be rigidly 
excluded. 

Technical applications of arithmetic. — There are 
many problems of even the most practical nature that 
are technical to various lines of business, and these 
should be, for the most part, omitted from general 
school work, and relegated to the different courses 
in commercial arithmetic in the business schools. 
Such, for example, are the problems of percentage 
met with in insurance and exchange; and those that 



262 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

are peculiar to the business of the lumberman, the 
bricklayer, and the stone mason. Instead of these 
technical problems, and others that not one grown citi- 
zen in a thousand ever has any need to know about, 
let the essentials be thoroughly and rationally drilled 
upon. In spite of well-meant efforts to endue arith- 
metic with a culture value, it seems to have so little that 
it is evidently wise to abandon the attempt to get cul- 
ture from such a barren source. Pupils should be 
drilled in arithmetic as in the use of a tool whose skill- 
ful handling is necessary in the successful prosecution 
of other matters. 

Clearness in thinking ; facility in doing. — In teach- 
ing arithmetic, as in teaching every other subject in the 
curriculum, the aim should be to secure clear thinking 
and skillful doing. 

To say that arithmetic lacks culture value is not at 
all to say that it lacks disciplinary value, for it has this 
in a very great degree. The results of good arithmetic 
teaching are exactness in analysis and quickness and 
correctness in the manipulation of figures. Along with 
these also goes increased neatness of written work done 
according to prescribed forms, — a matter of sufficient 
importance to justify far more attention than it usually 
gets. 

From the first time that problems, even the simplest, 
are used in number work, clear through the most difficult 
examples of the higher arithmetic, there should be con- 
stant drill on analysis and on the mechanical memory 
work of the fundamental operations. 

Much stress has, at times, been put upon "intellec- 
tual" or mental arithmetic, as contrasted with written 
arithmetic. All arithmetic is, of course, " mental," and 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 263 

there seems to be no good reason for the production 
and use of special text-books called mental arithmetics. 
What is needed is not a special text-book, implying a 
vicious and false distinction, but teachers who can, with 
any text-book or with none, give thorough and persistent 
drill in the thought processes involved. 

Two phases of analysis. — In the analysis (solution) 
of a problem there are two steps : one is the determina- 
tion of what data are given and what results are re- 
quired, and a careful discrimination between the given 
and the required ; the other is the perception of the re- 
lations in which the things given must be placed in order 
to reach the desired results, and the proper indications 
of those relations by symbols. Giving this analysis 
without performing the actual operations actively em- 
ploys and correspondingly trains the judgment, — the 
relational faculty, — and pupils should often be exercised 
in it. An excellent drill is to be had from it, even when 
the pupils go no farther than naming, in any problem 
presented, the things given and the things required. 
Much of the haziness and unpardonable looseness of 
the work done in solving problems is due to a failure 
to exercise this preliminary discrimination between the 
terms given to work with and the ends to work to. As 
a result of this laxness pupils form the habit of hastily 
looking over the problem, and, after referring to the 
"rule," setting down figures in some haphazard combi- 
nation, and then looking at the printed " answer " for 
justification ! 

" Rules " and " answers.' ' — The value of arithmetic 
as a means of cultivating originality and precision of 
thought is discounted a third or half by the use of text- 
books having rules and answers. Rules should be made 



264 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

by the pupils, as the result of their mastery of processes 
and by induction therefrom. Pupils should be trained 
to use their own judgment so correctly, and to rely 
upon its conclusions so confidently, that they will know 
when they have the correct answer without " looking in 
the book" to see. In practical life, the "answers" to 
problems of arithmetic are found, ultimately, in increased 
comforts of living, and we must know their certainty and 
correctness before they are found. 

Operative skill. — The correct and ready perform- 
ance of the operations indicated by the symbols is 
a matter, mainly, of mechanical memory ; but it is 
highly important to secure accuracy and speed of 
operation. Carelessness in written solutions should be 
as rigorously checked as looseness of analysis. Ab- 
solutely correct results must be insisted upon. The 
teacher should require accuracy, rapidity, and neatness 
in all written solutions. These three are the results 
of skill, and skill comes only through abundant prac- 
tice. After principles and processes are understood, 
there should be much drill in their ready application 
and use. 

The principles laid down above can be applied, in 
one or another form, from the very first lesson in 
number. 

PRIMARY ARITHMETIC : NUMBER WORK 

First lessons must be concrete. — From all the re- 
cent discussion as to what number is and as to how 
the child gains his first ideas of it, no good reason 
has emerged for not making the first lesson in num- 
ber objective and concrete. Arithmetic is no excep- 
tion to the rule that all knowledge comes directly or 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 26$ 

indirectly through the senses. Granting the necessity 
of the child's grasping the idea of relative magnitudes, 
in order to do effective work later, the fact still re- 
mains that the first idea of number is the idea of how 
many. The idea of how much — that is, of relative 
quantity or magnitude — may arise at about the same 
time, but is not associated, by the child, with the idea 
of the how many in any essential way. To state the 
matter clearly, the child must know the how many 
before he can make practical arithmetical use of a 
knowledge of relative magnitudes. 

Counting ; reading and writing figures. — Accord- 
ing to the testimony of from half to two thirds of the 
teachers working with children during the first school 
year, many pupils enter school who are unable to count 
beyond five, and many cannot count even so far. 

It is necessary, therefore, to begin the work in 
number with drills in counting. Right along with 
the counting must, of course, go the writing and 
reading of figures. The purpose is to fix the idea of 
numbers — rather than number — and to train to a 
ready and automatic recognition of figures as number 
symbols. The aim here should be similar to that in 
teaching beginners to read, — that is, to perfect the 
pupils in the mechanics of the subject. This aim 
should dominate the work all through the four funda- 
mental operations. Reading figures, and numbers as 
symbolized by them, adding, subtracting, multiplying, 
and dividing must become automatic. And, as in 
reading the subject-matter by whose use mechanical 
accuracy is to be secured must be interesting in itself, 
so the subject-matter of drill in arithmetic should, as 
far as possible, be interesting and real. 



266 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The course. — The course in number work for the 
first three years should consist of oral and written 
exercises which shall give the pupils considerable skill 
and freedom of operation in the groundwork, with 
whole numbers, with such fractions as come within 
their everyday experience, and with the more familiar 
denominate numbers. 

Apparatus. — Any simple objects easy to handle 
may be used as apparatus for the earlier lessons ; but 
nothing is better than splints about six inches long. 
A thousand of these can be had for a dime, from 
any kindergarten supply house. Rectangles and cir- 
cles cut into parts to illustrate fractions, and the 
common units of measurement — the pint, quart, peck, 
foot, yard — should be sufficiently abundant to enable 
the teacher and pupils to use them freely, both in 
class and in seat work. It would seem unnecessary 
to make so trite a suggestion, but it is a fact that in 
thousands of schools the barren grind of arithmetic is 
still gone through without the use of any illustrative 
material. What success there is in teaching it is 
mainly due to the experiences with numbers and the 
measurement of quantity which the pupils have in 
their homes. 

Ends in view. — The special ends which the teacher 
must have in clear view in the primary work, and to 
which every exercise must be made to contribute, are 
— in their order — (i) to develop the idea of concrete 
number; (2) to make clear the thought that the sec- 
ondary value expressed by a figure depends upon its 
place ; (3) to develop the idea that only those quan- 
tities can be compared whose values are measured in 
the same kind of units. By the time so much is done, 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 267 

the idea of abstract number will have developed suffi- 
ciently for all purposes of primary and intermediate 
teaching. 

Of course, these aims cannot be formulated to the 
pupils, much less by them, but the ideas they embody 
can be developed and illustrated so as to give the learn- 
ers a confident, though not consciously defined, working 
familiarity with them. 

Concrete number. — The idea of concrete number 
is gained from counting objects of the same kind, as 
five splints, three spools, eight horses. The next step 
— the counting of different objects as four, seven, or 
ten things — though still in concrete numbers, is toward 
a generalized idea, and so is toward the concept of ab- 
stract number. As soon as counting begins, reading 
and writing figures should begin. The o should be 
taught among the first, its value illustrated, and the 
name, zero, given. As the ideas of one, two, three, 
etc., things are grasped, the names of the correspond- 
ing numbers should be given, and the figures should be 
written on the board by the teacher and copied by the 
pupils. The writing should not be carried farther than 
9 until the numbers and the figures corresponding can 
be instantly recognized" by the pupils. 

Teaching 10. — As in the case of the other numbers 
and figures, as soon as ten objects are counted, and 
"ten" is understood as number, then the symbol " 10" 
should be written on the board as representing that 
number, and opportunity should be given for questions 
from the class. If the natural curiosity and quickness 
of thought of the pupils have not been deadened, the 
question, in one form or another, will come soon, — " How 
does a 1 with a o make ten f " Now is to be developed 



268 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

and illustrated the idea that one value of a figure depends 
upon its place, and the idea, also, that value increases 
from right to left by a decimal scale. A right hold upon 
these ideas will make addition, subtraction, and multipli- 
cation something more than mere mechanical operations, 
and will make easy the way through division, — " short " 
and "long," — through denominate numbers, and, indi- 
rectly, through fractions. 

The teacher, transferring the ten splints from the 
right hand, where all separate units have so far been 
held, to the left hand, and placing an elastic band about 
them, shows the ten splints as now one bundle. The I, 
there on the left, in the "10" written on the board, 
means one bundle zvorth ten ; the o means no units in 
the right hand, and is written by the I to make it keep 
place. At the proper time, ioo can be illustrated in the 
same way, by making ten of the ten-bundles into one 
large bundle and laying it on the desk, to the left, while 
the o's of the ioo are shown by the empty hands. Any 
number between 10 and 200 — and, if necessary, larger 
ones — may be easily and simply illustrated concretely 
in this way. Special attention must be called to the 
fact that ten sticks are required for each small bundle, 
and ten small bundles for each large one. 

Counting by groups. — Along with the work outlined 
above should go some drill in counting by groups, — as 
one two, two twos, three twos ; one three, two threes, 
three threes, etc. The value of this group counting will 
appear in the operations of addition and multiplication. 

THE FUNDAMENTAL OPERATIONS 

By the time the pupils can readily count, read, and 
write figures to four, they should be put at concrete work 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 269 

in the four operations, and should begin to build the 
tables. They should use objects in making each of the 
four tables, as far as 10 at least. 

Successful work in arithmetic, as in higher mathe- 
matics, depends very largely upon the power to make 
and combine images ; therefore there should be an 
early storing up of abundant sense impressions from 
which to make images. But it must be borne in mind 
that it is as fatal to continue the work too far with 
objects as it is to begin it without them. The need 
is only that there shall be a firm basis of experience of 
the concrete upon which the mind may confidently and 
solidly build. 

Thoroughness in the tables. — Beyond 10 the table 
making may be done by counting, if necessary, and by 
using combinations already learned. But in whatever 
way the pupils develop the tables — and the important 
point to guard is that they do develop them in some 
way instead of learning them "ready-made " — the drill 
upon them must continue until there is automatic 
facility. 

Use of the signs. — From the very beginning, correct- 
ness in using and reading the signs should be insisted 
on; "2 + 3 = 5," f° r example, should be read "two plus 
three equals five," and "3 — 2=1" should be read 
"three minus two equals one." The same suggestion 
is equally applicable in the other two operations. The 
signs and their names are readily taught by simply and 
naturally using them. 

In conformity with the principle of use, the tables also 
should, as fast as learned, be applied in simple, interest- 
ing, and practical problems whose conditions and terms 
are familiar in the ordinary experiences of the children. 



270 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Incidental arithmetic. — It is in the solving of such 
problems that arithmetic is learned. They should be 
set for regular work during the period allotted to arith- 
metic. But much can be accomplished by incidental 
number work in other exercises. For example, the 
teacher may say to the reading class, " We read three 
paragraphs in this story yesterday, and have just fin- 
ished four more in this lesson ; how many have we 
read ? " In the oral lessons in physiology and other 
nature-study subjects, and very often in the play of the 
children, there are many opportunities for incidental 
number work, and the wise teacher will use them well. 
The chief good of this kind of drill, aside from the 
practice it gives, is that it serves to show that arith- 
metic has uses outside the arithmetic class. 

But arithmetic thus applied should always be kept 
subordinate and incidental ; it is liable to overshadow 
the principal subject and distract attention from it. 
The child cannot get either the scientific or the 
aesthetic value of a flower if he has, to give much at- 
tention to the number of its petals, or tell precisely how 
many more petals there would have to be to make seven. 

Numbers expressed by two figures. — As soon as the 
pupils gain some facility in adding and subtracting 
numbers up to ten, they should be set to work on add- 
ing numbers expressed by two figures. 

At first the pupils, in adding or subtracting, should 
name the figures according to their order. For example, 
the addition of 43 and 36 should be orally described 
thus : " Six units and three units are nine units ; four 
tens and three tens are seven tens ; the sum is seven 
tens and nine units, or seventy-nine." 

"Carrying" and " borrowing." — It is to be hoped 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 2? I 

that the teachers of to-day will try hard to eliminate 
from the vocabulary of arithmetic the time-worn terms 
"borrowing " and " carrying." They are false and mis- 
leading. To illustrate : in solving the problem, Add : A 

the pupil should say, " Six units and five units are 
eleven units, which are one unit and one ten ; I write 
one in the units place, and add one ten to the three 
tens, making four tens ; four tens and six tens are ten 
tens, which are one hundred with nothing in tens place ; 
I write o in the tens place, and i in the hundreds place." 
There can be no " carrying " of " I " from the sum of 
the units to the tens column; if it is one ten, it is, by 
virtue of being a ten, already in the tens column. 

So, in subtraction there can be no "borrowing," if a 
right method is followed. For example, in solving, Sub- 
tract : 5 the pupil should say, " I cannot subtract six 

units from five units, but by using one ten of the six 
tens in the minuend as ten units, I have fifteen units ; 
taking six units from fifteen units leaves nine units; 
three tens from five tens leaves two tens." 

The processes, in subtraction especially, should be 
illustrated a few times with objects. What is insisted on 
is truthfulness of process and of arithmetical language. 
Certainly, after the pupils come to understand these 
processes of addition and subtraction, they should not 
be required to give such analyses as are shown above, 
but should be trained to rapidity. 

The same care should be exercised in multiplication 
and division. Then there need be no difficulty about 
" writing the first figure of the product under that figure 
of the multiplier which produced it." 



272 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The terms "short" and "long," applied to division, 
should follow "carrying" and "borrowing" to the 
limbo of discarded words. When so-called "long divi- 
sion" is reached, an illustration or two like the follow- 
ing will usually be sufficient to make its imaginary 
difficulties disappear — provided there has been suffi- 
cient drill on the division table. 



2000 
200 

5 
2235 quotient. 



19)42465 
38000 

4465 
3 8o ° 

665 

570 

95 
95 

Mastery first, then speed. — It is sometimes urged that 
pupils, at the beginning of any subject in arithmetic, 
should be trained to mechanical precision in performing 
operations, without stopping to understand clearly the 
reason for the processes. This is plainly contrary to 
the best pedagogy and so to the best interests of the 
pupils. As a matter of fact, no step should be taken 
in arithmetic, at any point in the course, the reason for 
which is not made clear at the time. To do other- 
wise is to lose the real disciplinary value of arithmetic 
as a means of training the rational faculty. After 
the child is old enough to take a given step in number 
work he is old enough to understand the way he is to 
take it. The rule should be "Mastery first, then speed." 
Time, plenty of time, must be used to secure mastery ; 
objects must be used, illustrations given, explanations 
made, — in short, no effort must be spared to make each 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 273 

forward step a step into light instead of into darkness. 
Then there must be persistent drill until accuracy and 
rapidity become ^automatic. 

FRACTIONS 

Fractions, the horror of many a poor child and the bug- 
bear of not a few grown people, may be as easily intro- 
duced to pupils as the " whole numbers." The teacher 
should not lose sight of the fact that fractions are whole 
numbers, too, and should do his teaching with a clear 
definition in his own mind, similar to the following : A 
fraction is the expression of one or more units which are 
themselves equal parts of another kind of unit. No 
definitions are to be given the pupils, but by objective 
illustration they are to be led to see what a fraction is. 
When they grasp the fact that |-, for example, is an 
expression of two units of the name of thirds, and that 
in order to get these units (the thirds) some other unit 
was divided into three equal parts, they know all they 
need to know about the nature of a fraction. And when 
they clearly know, as they should before fractions are 
introduced, that numbers, in order to be combined or 
separated, must be made up of the same kind of units, 
then they have all there is in the fundamental operations 
as applied to fractions. In writing fractions, the denomi- 
nators should sometimes be written out, thus — 2 thirds, 
3 fourths. So simple a device makes it plain that a 
fraction is some number of units and also that fractions 
made up of different kinds of units cannot be added 
together any more than two oranges and three apples. 

During the first three years of school life the pupils 
will be drilled in only the simplest operations with frac- 
tions, but these should be objectively illustrated until 
roark's meth. — 18 



274 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

they are perfectly understood. By the end of the third 
year the pupil should know thoroughly what a fraction 
is, and should know the processes in the various opera- 
tions with them, so that he can readily apply these 
processes, singly or in combination, in more difficult 
problems in fractions. 

DENOMINATE NUMBERS 

It does not matter which subject is first taught, — 
denominate numbers or fractions. Fractions are "de- 
nominate" numbers, written, for convenience, in a spe- 
cial way. 

Making the " tables.' ' — The denominate number 
tables should, like those in addition, multiplication, etc., 
be made by the pupils themselves, and by the use of the 
instruments of measurement. It is a high misdemeanor 
to have a pupil say "two pints make one quart, four 
quarts one gallon," before he has handled the pint, quart, 
and gallon measures for himself and has seen the rela- 
tions between them. 

The first simple problems in denominate numbers 
should be worked out with the proper instruments of 
measure in hand. 

INTERMEDIATE ARITHMETIC 

Place in the course. — What is usually called inter- 
mediate arithmetic should be strengthened a little, and 
made to include more practice problems in everyday 
affairs. If this were done, there would be no real need 
of any pupil's spending time on the advanced arithmetic 
of the usual school course ; about one third of the time 
commonly spent in arithmetic could be saved, the pupil, 
at the same time, getting all the arithmetic he would 
ever have any use for. 



NUMBER : ARITHMETIC 2/5 

An introduction to algebra. — This grade of arithmetic 
should be " intermediate " in the sense of standing as a 
sort of link between arithmetic and algebra, rather than 
in the sense of standing between elementary and the 
advanced stages of arithmetic. The higher arithmetic 
so generally taught not only is not a helpful introduc- 
tion to algebra, but many of the problems laid down in 
current text-books cannot be solved without the use of 
algebraic processes. Algebraic quantities and symbols 
are not, perhaps, used, but the processes are algebraic. 
Hence, instead of higher arithmetic being an intro- 
duction to algebra, algebra is necessary to the work 
required in the higher arithmetic. It would seem 
wise, then, to make the intermediate arithmetic intro- 
ductory to algebra, and cut out the so-called " higher" 
arithmetic altogether. This seems advisable, even if 
no more is done in algebra than to give the pupils some 
training in abstract generalization. For example, even 
in primary classes, among such problems as, " If one 
orange costs three cents how much will a dozen cost ? " 
there should appear an occasional one like this — " If 
one pencil costs two cents, how much will x pencils 
cost ? " And in advanced work the same plan could 
provide a few such examples as, " If I send my broker 
b dollars to invest in city 4's, at 8% discount, brokerage 
y°[o, what is the amount of the bonds purchased ? " 

The taking up of work in the intermediate arithmetic 
presupposes facile familiarity with the four fundamental 
operations, as applied to whole numbers in the decimal 
scale, to simple fractions, and to easy denominate num- 
bers. To secure such familiarity should be the aim 
constantly in view in the primary work. 

Subjects to be emphasized. — In intermediate grades, 



276 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

the purposes should be to make the learners adept in 
the operations used in the more complex combinations 
of numbers ; to give them, especially, a clear insight into 
number relations ; and to train them to a ready compre- 
hension of the applications of arithmetic in ordinary 
business transactions. 

Factoring. — With these things in view, particular 
emphasis should be laid early on factoring. There 
should be much drill, direct and indirect, in factoring at 
sight, or by " inspection." There is every reason why 
pupils should work out a " factoring table," as they 
worked out an addition table. A list of prime numbers 
should be committed to memory, and also the prime 
factors of the most used composite numbers. To have 
these things ready for instant use is as convenient and 
time-saving, often, as to know the multiplication table. 

Much more attention than is usually given or called 
for by the text-book should be bestowed on the relations 
between minuend, subtrahend, and remainder ; between 
multiplicand, multiplier, and product ; and especially 
between dividend, divisor, quotient, and remainder. 
Readiness in the perception of these relations will be 
helpful throughout not only the arithmetic, but the 
higher mathematics also. 

Even at this early stage, the pupils can learn what a 
formula is, — not by definition, but by use. They can 

readily learn the meaning of such expressions as j-=. = m, 

(M standing for multiplicand and m for multiplier), 

and — = d. 

q 

G.C.D. and L. CM. — The drill in finding the greatest 
common divisor and the least common multiple should 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 2JJ 

not be confined, as is generally the case, to operations 
with abstract numbers, but should include the solution 
of problems whose conditions may be real. The pupil 
gets nothing but "figure gymnastics " from such prob- 
lems as "Find the G.C.D. of 15, 45, 90; " but he has 
something concrete and illustrative, as well as some- 
thing of which he can see a use, in questions like these : 

"What is the largest bill I can use in paying three 
debts of $20, $45, $70 respectively? " 

" How long a stick will exactly measure two logs, 
one 15 ft, the other, 9 ft. long?" 

"Here are four milk cans, holding 8 qts., 18 qts., 20 
qts., and 14 qts. respectively ; what is the largest vessel 
that can be used in emptying the cans, if it is filled each 
time milk is drawn ? " 

The same sort of problems may be used in exercises 
in finding the L.C.M. 

Some drill exercises may be given with abstract num- 
bers, and both G.C.D. and L.C.M. should be reviewed in 
connection with the more advanced work in fractions. 

Proportion. — Hardly any other topic in arithmetic 
affords so good an opportunity as does proportion for 
an exercise of the power to perceive the abstract rela- 
tions of quantities. The drill in proportion should be 
very careful and thorough, and should result in a clear 
knowledge of what ratio is, of what is meant by " equality 
of ratios," and of the sort of problems that involve pro- 
portion in the processes of their solution. 

Practical problems. — In the assignment of problems 
two things should be kept in mind : (1) that only prac- 
tical problems — those whose conditions are possible in 
actual domestic or business experience — should be set 
for solution ; and (2) that a problem may be practical in 



278 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

itself, and yet not be so within the range of the pupil's 
imagination or experience. An excellent plan, in close 
accord with the accepted principles of pedagogy, is to 
have the pupils themselves make problems. Not only 
are the pupils thereby benefited, by having their own in- 
vention and judgment stimulated, but the teacher has the 
best opportunity to estimate the extent of the pupils' 
experience and their perception of number relations. 

In arithmetic, as in anything else, the more the pupil 
has seen and heard — the richer his sense experiences 
— the more freely can he move about in the subject. 

The first problem given below illustrates what is 
meant by " practical " ; the second, taken from a late 
work, is a fair sample of the arithmetical conundrum 
that has no legitimate place in a text-book. 

(1) "Divide $240 between John and Sara so that the 
two shares will be in the ratio of their ages, which are 
8 and 12 years." 

(2) " A lady bought two pieces of cloth ; the longer 
lacked 9 yds. of being three times the length of the shorter. 
She paid $2 a yard for the longer, and $3 a yard for the 
shorter, and the shorter piece cost as much as the 
longer. How many yards were there in each piece?" 

The sort of thing illustrated in (2) is more flagrantly 
perpetrated in percentage, perhaps, than anywhere else. 
Here are two more problems, in advance work, that 
even more plainly typify the right and the wrong kind. 

(1) "A merchant marks his goods so that he may 
allow a discount of 4%, and still make a profit of 15%. 
What must be the selling price of an article costing 
$4.80?" 

(2) "A banker owns 2j% stocks, at 10% below par, 
and 3% stocks, at 15% below par. The income from 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 



279 



the former is 66f % more than from the latter, and the 
investment in the latter is $11,400 less than in the 
former; required the whole investment and income." 

The conditions of such a problem could not possibly 
arise in actual business experience, and to waste time 
upon it is as unprofitable as to waste time, in grammar, 
upon the analysis and parsing of a sentence that 
would never be used in good colloquial or literary 
English. 

Too many " money " problems. — Most text-books are 
open to criticism, not only for setting impractical, not to 
say impossible problems, but also for setting " money " 
problems almost exclusively, in percentage, and too 
frequently under other topics. It is bad enough to give 
the pupils an idea that almost the only application of 
the principles of percentage is to matters of money ; it 
is worse to lend the weight of a school study to exag- 
gerate still further the already over-emphasized idea 
that money-getting and money-handling are the impor- 
tant things of life. The thoughtful teacher will neutral- 
ize somewhat the tendency of the books, by setting many 
problems based on everyday matters, on the simpler 
facts of physics, and even on animal and plant physi- 
ology. The following examples are illustrative : — 

(1) "A farmer's ice house holds 15 tons of ice. How 
often will he have to cut ice from a pond with a clear 
surface of 30x40 ft., in order to fill the house, if he 
cuts only when the ice is 4 in. thick ? " (The pupils 
should find, by actual trial, the weight of a cu. ft. of 
ice.) 

(2) "If the burning of 16 lbs. of coal keeps the aver- 
age temperature of the schoolroom at 65 °, for two hours, 
how much coal will have to be burned to keep the room 



28o METHOD IN EDUCATION 

at that temperature for the school day ? " (The condi- 
tions of the problem should be determined by the pupils 
by actual tests.) 

(3) " How often will all the blood of an average adult 
pass through the heart in an hour ? How many foot- 
pounds of work does the heart do in that time ? " (The 
data for such a problem are obtainable from any good 
physiology. " Foot-pound " will be found defined in any 
good dictionary or cyclopedia). 

Formal solutions. — As said earlier in the chapter, all 
written work should be neat and clear, and blackboard 
work, especially, should be self-explanatory. To secure 
this ideal, the pupils should be drilled, when regular text- 
book work is taken up, in the use of a correct, logical 
form of solution. 

The chief requirements of such a form are: (1) that 
it shall state clearly the conditions given and the results 
required; (2) that it shall show the analysis of the 
problem ; and (3) that the operations shall be indicated 
and the result of each step named. 

Below are given some illustrations of the use of such 
a form in written work. It will be seen that the solu- 
tions illustrate also the excellent arithmetical principle 
of reasoning from " the given many to 1, and from 1 to 
the required many." 

P. 67, Ex. 6. 

Etta James. 
Given : $1295, the cost of 37 horses. 
Required : the cost of 48 horses, bought at the same rate. 

(1) 37 horses cost $1295, by the terms of the problem. 

(2) 1 horse cost ^ I2 95 _ ^5. 

37 

(3) 48 horses cost $35 x 48 = $1680. Ans. 



NUMBER: ARITHMETIC 28 1 

P*. 199, Ex. 9. 
Henry Brown. 
Given: $351, amount sent to broker to be invested in sugar; 
8 %, rate of commission. 

Required : the amount paid for the sugar. 

(1) 100 % = amount paid for sugar. 

(2) 108 % = $351, amount paid for sugar, and the commission. 

(3) i%=&£ = $3-25- 

10b 

(4) 100% = $3.25 x 100 = $325. Ans. 

ADVANCED ARITHMETIC 

The best arrangement of the course in arithmetic 
would leave out what is called the u higher arithmetic " 
altogether, as a separate text. One well-planned book, 
or at most two, will be found sufficient to give the 
pupils, whether in rural or in city schools, all they need 
of arithmetic, and, in addition, a beginning in algebra. 
The term " advanced arithmetic," then, should be taken 
to mean a thorough drill in the more abstract princi- 
ples of the subject, and abundant illustrative work with 
miscellaneous problems. About five months are time 
enough to use in this higher review and practice work, 
and the pupil should, at the same time, be learning 
something of algebra and geometry. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
LANGUAGE TRAINING 

Expression the supreme test. — The ultimate and 
supreme test of the teacher's work is the power which 
his pupils have to express ; expression is the last and 
highest operation of the mind. Thought and feeling 
are expressed in language, painting, sculpture, music, 
and in all material products of man's skill ; character is 
expressed in co?idnct ; all the inner life is expressed in 
some form of outward doing. 

With language lesson exercises a training in oral and 
written expression of thought and feeling begins, which 
should extend and increase in effectiveness throughout 
the school life. Drill in fluent, correct, and refined 
use of English should begin for each pupil the day he 
first enters school, and should be the last thing done for 
him as he leaves the university. The home should 
do very much before the school has opportunity to do 
anything ; the work of formal education should be so 
well done that the results shall be observable through 
all the life of the pupil. The truest, most delicate test 
of intellectual culture is ability to use the vernacular 
with cogency, fluency, and precision. 

PRIMARY STAGE 

In beginning the work of language training, the 
teacher will do well to keep certain clearly established 

282 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 283 

facts in his near view: (1) there can be no expression 
unless there is something — impression, thought, feel- 
ing — to be expressed ; (2) expression, when there is 
something to be expressed, is a natural movement of 
the mind, and does not need stimulus so much as direc- 
tion; (3) expression intensifies and clarifies impression. 
It causes, even in young pupils, an inner searching, a 
turning of the light of consciousness into mental cor- 
ners, to find ideas, words, and forms of utterance. 

The first aims. — The first aims, then, should be to 
quicken ideas already acquired, to develop new ones, 
and to give verbal form to both. To accomplish these 
aims requires the most sympathetic and close mental 
contact of teacher and pupil, and this is brought about 
best in the conversation. Just in proportion as the 
teacher's heart is in his work will he find free, un- 
constrained talks with his little people pleasurable and 
helpful to them, and not less so to himself. 

Objects in view. — He should have several objects in 
view in these talks, but they should at no time become 
so obvious as to interfere with the freedom and natural- 
ness of the intercourse. The first object should be to 
find out what the children know best, what they think 
about most, what stirs their feeling quickest — in short, 
as the modern phrase has it, "the contents of their minds." 
He needs to know these things in order to know where 
to start from in his work of language training. . 

The second object should be to get the pupils to talk 
fluently and naturally ; fluency should be sought before 
correctness. 

The third object should be to secure — a little at a 
time — correctness of speech in words, tone, enunciation, 
and pronunciation. 



284 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Topics of conversation. — The topics of these talks 
with the pupils should be varied. Most frequently, 
perhaps, an information lesson, or a nature-study exer- 
cise, should form the nucleus around which the conver- 
sation should gather. Often a story, biographical or 
mythological, will furnish abundant material for a talk, 
and occasionally the pupils themselves should be per- 
mitted to suggest the topic. Free use should be made 
also of the reading lesson and the discussion of it, as a 
language exercise. One of the best means of calling 
out interested and ready talk is a picture, illustrating 
objects, scenes, or activities with which children are 
more or less familiar. It is easy to make a collection 
of such pictures from papers, illustrated price-lists, and 
the advertising pages of magazines. 

Correction of error. — If it is remembered that talking 
is, with the child, an art, something in which skill is to 
be acquired by practice based upon imitation of good 
models, then no attempt will be made to furnish first, 
second, or even third year pupils with rules for correct 
speech. The best way to correct error is for the teacher 
to use good language himself — syntactically correct, 
choice and simple in wording, and distinct in enuncia- 
tion. Unless such a model is kept constantly before 
the children, rules and regulations will do little or noth- 
ing toward forming, or reforming, their speech. 

But there should be specific correction of errors; and 
doubtless the best way, at first, is quietly to substitute 
the correct word or pronunciation just when the child 
uses the wrong one. If the pupil says, " I taken the 
apple," the teacher says, "You mean 'I took the ap- 
ple.' " Such correction should be made so that it will 
have effect, but not so as to embarrass the child, or 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 285 

make him feel that he is put to talking merely to afford 
the teacher a chance to criticise his speech. 

ORAL COMPOSITION 

Reproduction. — As facility and confidence are ac- 
quired, reproduction exercises may be introduced, from 
which the transition will be easy, later, to original oral 
composition. Some day, when the teacher has held the 
interest of the little listeners by some good story which 
he has read or — better — told to them, he may say, on 
finishing, " Now who will tell the story back to me ? " 
and whoever undertakes to do so should be permitted to 
proceed without interruption. If there is time others 
may be allowed to supply omissions in his reproduction 
after he has finished. Even at this early stage, pupils 
may be asked frequently to "tell the story" of the 
reading lesson. If the teacher is so fortunate as to 
have time and opportunity to teach reading to begin- 
ners, without text-books, in the way suggested in Chap- 
ter VIII., then, of course, the whole reading exercise is 
a language drill. 

Original composition. — The next step is into original 
narration. The first exercise may be based on a pic- 
ture ; after the pupils have told what they see, and what 
they think is going on in the picture, some one may be 
asked "to tell a story about it." If the story does not 
move off very well, the narrator should be helped by a 
little suggestive questioning. 

Personal narration. — When some facility has been 
gained by the pupils in putting a " picture story " to- 
gether, the teacher may, some day, without previous 
notice, ask members of the class to tell what they 
did on Thanksgiving, or on Christmas, or when they 



286 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

went to the picnic, or to grandma's. Care should be 
taken to select, for these exercises, experiences which 
the pupils have recently had, and in which they have 
been much interested. 

Skillful direction will be necessary to get the young 
narrators to give the experiences of a day in chronologi- 
cal order, and without undue embellishment from the 
imagination. If the teacher succeeds in this, and in 
correcting the more glaring errors of speech and tone, 
he may feel that he has done enough. 

During all this time, from the first conversation exer- 
cise, there is no need for the pupils to know — indeed, 
it is better for them not to know — that they are under- 
going a specific training in composition ; the conversa- 
tions should be kept up throughout, and the interest of 
the pupils should all the time be sustained. 

WRITTEN COMPOSITION 

Written composition may be begun as soon as the 
pupils acquire sufficient freedom in the mechanics of 
writing to be able to write without giving more atten- 
tion to the forming of the letters than to the thought to 
be expressed, and when there has been gained consider- 
able readiness of oral expression. The work they do 
in learning to read and write concurrently, according 
to approved methods, is a training in written composi- 
tion ; and there should be a good deal of practice even 
in the first months of school in copying sentences. All 
this is valuable preparatory work, in which only correct 
forms should be set before the pupils, and they should 
learn by imitation the elementary mechanics of compo- 
sition. 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 287 

Transition from oral to written. — The transition from 
oral to written composition may be made simply and 
naturally by saying to some pupil who has reproduced 
a story or told one of his own well, " Now, that's good, 
so good I want to keep it ; how can I get it to keep ? " 
This at once suggests the idea of writing the story, 
which is done, and a beginning is made in written com- 
position. Or, if the teacher prefers, he may ask the 
whole class " to write the story " after he has read or 
told them an unusually short and interesting one. 

These first efforts at written composition must be 
carefully collected and preserved by the teacher, for 
several reasons : (1) to make the pupils feel that what 
they have written is deemed of importance ; (2) to en- 
able the teacher to see what deficiencies the pupils have ; 
(3) to enable a comparison to be made later with the 
pupils' more advanced work, and thus to encourage 
them by showing the progress they have made. 

Frequency of written exercises. — Written composition 
should, after it is begun, go on concurrently with oral 
composition, there being, at first, much more of the 
latter. Only the " best stories " should be put in writ- 
ing, and thus the pupils will come to look upon " writing, 
a story " (they should not be startled by being asked to 
" write a composition ") as a special privilege. It can 
be so managed that the pupils will not dread " compo- 
sition day," but will desire to have the written work 
oftener. In the first three or four years of school no 
attempt need be made to have written work done at any 
set, regular periods ; let it come when, in the teacher's 
judgment, the occasion is most favorable for free, inter- 
ested expression. Although it must be the rule for the 
teacher to take up all written composition exercises, for 



288 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

reasons given above, yet he need not mark and return 
every exercise. It is best, however, for him to make 
oral criticisms, comments, and suggestions on all exer- 
cises, whether marked and returned or not. 

Correction of errors. — At first, the marking of errors 
should be confined to spelling, the use of capitals, and 
the use of the period ; the oral criticism may include 
also the more flagrant errors in syntax. Not a word 
should be said about grammar or rules ; correct models 
should be given and the imitation of them insisted on. 

Before the pupils begin written composition as such, 
they will have learned something of the use of capitals 
and punctuation marks from their readers, and constant 
reference may well be made to the printed page as a 
sort of standard of right practice in written work. 

Range of written composition. — If it be kept steadily 
in mind that the use of language is an art, it will readily 
be seen that skill in this, as in other arts, comes only 
from much practice ; hence the need of making every 
class a language class. By this it .is meant not only 
that oral recitations are to be made with due regard to 
the language forms of answers, but also that, as soon 
as the pupil can write freely, he should occasionally 
write a composition upon some topic in each branch of 
study pursued. Such compositions need be neither long 
nor formal, but correctness of form and expression must 
be insisted on. These written exercises should fit into 
and be a part of the regular work in the several branches, 
not being looked upon as compositions, but rather sim- 
ply as drills in the written expression of the pupils' 
knowledge of geography, or history, or arithmetic. The 
teacher can easily manage to have, occasionally, a few 
minutes left in a recitation period, and can say, " Now, 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 289 

we have ten minutes before time to dismiss the class. 
Take your pencils and write me what we learned yester- 
day about nouns " (or about Columbus, or subtraction, 
etc.). If the teacher will examine these exercises, he 
will find much of the greatest value, whereby he may 
get an insight into his pupils' ways of thinking, their 
peculiarities of memory, their hold upon various sub- 
jects, as well as their defects of language. 

By such exercises the pupils may early be brought to 
see that skill in oral and written expression is a valuable 
tool, useful in any subject, and they will be disabused 
of the too prevalent idea that such work should be con- 
fined to the " composition class." The rural teacher will 
also find the plan just outlined a means of circumvent- 
ing the pupils who persist in avoiding, upon one available 
pretext or another, enrollment in the composition class. 

Answering in complete sentences. — It remains to be 
said in this connection that although correct use of 
language should be one of the important ends aimed 
at in conducting any recitation, still there seems to be 
no reasonableness in the rule sometimes enforced, that 
all answers should be in complete sentences. Complete 
expression of thought does not always require a com- 
plete sentence. To insist that a child shall say, " I 
have four pencils in my right hand," in reply to the 
teacher's question, " How many pencils have you in your 
right hand?" is not only unnecessary, it is foolishly 
tiresome. 

INTERMEDIATE STAGE 

Language training during the first three or four years 
of the child's school life must be slow, persistent, patient 
— a forming of habits of correct speech without the 
roark's meth. — 19 



290 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

learner's knowing why they are correct, and a begin- 
ning in the formal work of written composition. 



BEGINNINGS OF GRAMMAR 

In the fourth or fifth year of school life some definite, 
clearly planned work may very profitably be begun in 
grammar. Indeed, it would be well to continue the 
work in grammar in connection with practice in written 
composition, rather than with the use of a grammar 
text-book, up to the time of entering the high school. 
As the result of this oral grammar teaching the pupil 
should, by the time he is ready for the text-book, be 
able to recognize easily the more important parts of 
speech in their ordinary connections, and should know 
enough of sentence structure to separate familiar sen- 
tences into their chief elements. All this can be learned 
from the reading lessons, and fixed by application in 
daily speech and in written work. Time will thus be 
saved, and may be used in the acquirement of skill in 
the art of language, this properly preceding the study 
of the formal science of grammar. 

Teaching correct names. — It is highly desirable that 
from the beginning of the oral grammar teaching 
correct names shall be taught, and not such terms as 
"name-words," "quality-words," "action-words," and 
others even more misleading. It may be stated again 
that, as a rule, if a pupil is able to undertake the study 
of a subject he is able to learn the terms technical 
to that subject, and they should not be diluted for 
him. 

An illustration of serviceable method in oral grammar 
is afforded by the following outline of a lesson plan : — 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 29 1 

Lesson Plan for Teaching Nouns 

I. Time of the lesson — the regular reading period. 
II. Preparation by the pupil — none. 

III. Objects of the lesson. 

(1) To teach what a noun is. 

(2) To teach the term " noun. 1 ' 

(3) To teach the use of capitals in proper names. 

_ IV. Steps in realizing these objects. 

(1) Some day quietly ask the pupils of the reading class to 

lay aside their books. Point to some object and ask 
its name. Do thus with several objects, writing the 
names on the board as they are given, beginning each 
with a small letter. 

(2) Ask the class, "What have I here on the board?" 

Elicit some such answer as, "A list of names." 

(3) Ask the pupils to mention some more names. If any 

proper names are given, write them with a capital. 

(4) Tell the pupils, simply and quietly, that all these names 

may also be called nouns. Ask them to point out what 
difference they see in the way the nouns are written. 

(5) Erase the list, and ask each pupil to come to the board 

and write a noun. See to it, without giving any 
"rule," that proper nouns are written with capitals. 

(6) If enough time remains, have the pupils open their 

readers and point out some nouns in the lesson. 

At intervals of about a week the descriptive adjective, 
the verb, the pronoun, and the adverb may be taught in 
the same manner as the noun. Each part of speech 
learned should be often reviewed by having it pointed 
out in the reading lesson, and, occasionally, in other 
lessons, as arithmetic or geography. 

Sentence structure. — Later lessons, upon the same 
general plan, will develop the idea of the sentence, of 



292 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

subject and predicate, and of phrase and clause. The 
teaching will be inductive, definitions and rules will have 
no place in it, and the illustrations will be drawn mainly 
from the reading lessons and from the pupils' own 
compositions. 

Teaching the sentence may be done according to the 
plan next shown : — 

Lesson Plan for Teaching the Sentence 

I. Time of the lesson — the regular reading period. 
II. Preparation by the pupils — none. 

III. Objects of the lesson : — 

(i) To show what a sentence is. 

(2) To show some different kinds of sentences. 

IV. Steps in realizing these objects. 

(1) Write "cats " on the board, and ask two or three pupils, 

separately, to tell what cats do. Write these sentences 
on the board as they are given. 

(2) Next write some nonsense jumble of words, as " Hickery 

dickery cats in dockery sold, ,,, and ask the difference 
between it and what was written before. (The 
answers will be that what was written first " makes 
sense,' 1 or " means something," or " says something 
you can understand. 11 ) 

(3) Erase the nonsense, saying, " Yes, that stuff doesn't 

mean anything ; these (pointing to the sentences) 
mean something, and we call them sentences" 

(4) Erase the sentences, and say, " Make a sentence about 

dogs ; one about hens ; ask me a question about cows. 11 
Write these on the board and call attention to the 
interrogation point. 

(5) Tell the pupils, one at a time, to open their readers and 

read a sentence. Ask them to pick out some with the 
interrogation point at the end. Ask them whether 
these sentences tell something or ask something. 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 293 

In reviewing this exercise, from the reading lessons, 
the terms "declarative," and " interrogative," may be 
taught incidentally. 

While the pupils are learning grammar in this practi- 
cal and simple way, the work in composition has also 
been going forward steadily. 

WRITTEN COMPOSITION 

The mechanics of composition. — The results sought 
in the primary work are to be sought also in the inter- 
mediate stage, but should be attained more in detail. 
The specific ends to be reached may be summed up in 
the phrase " automatic correctness in the mechanics of 
composition." By the time the pupil is ready to enter 
the high school he must be able readily to set down on 
paper somewhat of his knowledge, or thought, or feel- 
ing, in such form as shall show the right placing of the 
subject, proper margin, correct spelling, right use of 
capitals, proper punctuation, and paragraphing done 
with due regard to both sense and neatness. So much 
the high school may rightly demand of a pupil entering 
upon its course. Such readiness cannot be attained 
except as the result of constant, intelligent, and inter- 
ested practice, and the practice should be in every sub- 
ject in which the pupil has thought to express. 

How to attain these ends. — This idea is emphasized 
in the report of the Committee of Ten, which says: 
" There can be no more appropriate moment for a brief 
lesson in expression than the moment when the pupil 
has something which he is trying to express. If this 
principle is not regarded, a recitation in history or in 
botany, for example, may easily undo all that a set ex- 
ercise in English has accomplished. In order that both 



294 METHOD IIV EDUCATION 

teacher and pupil may attach due importance to this 
incidental instruction in English, the pupil's standing in 
any subject should depend on his use of clear and cor- 
rect English." The last sentence is especially appli- 
cable in advanced work. Professor Hart was wholly 
right when he said : " Failure in English should dis- 
qualify any one from graduation from any institution. 
We have no right to certify to the world as an educated 
person one who is unable to express himself clearly and 
correctly in his mother tongue." 

With the exception of paragraphing, all the things 
just spoken of are matters, plainly, of mere mechanical 
imitation. But to paragraph correctly involves the 
logical faculty, requiring a pretty clear mental outline 
or analysis of the subject into its sub-topics, and the 
arrangement of these in their proper order. A study of 
the paragraph should be begun early ; its use should be 
learned directly from the printed page, the pupil learn- 
ing inductively what its value is and how it is made. 

In the primary work, the object is -fluency of speech, 
with correctness rather incidental. In the intermediate 
stage, the object, as far as written work is concerned, 
is ease of correct expression, the correctness being the 
result of conscious effort on the part of the pupil. The 
habit of correct mechanical writing, like many other 
desirable habits, has to be formed by effort more or less 
conscious. 

Letter writing. — One of the best means of teaching 
formal written composition is letter writing; correct 
form may be rigidly insisted upon, and at the same time 
the matter of the letter may be almost conversationally 
informal. Managed by a sympathetic teacher the letter 
writing exercise becomes a favorite one with the pupils, 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 295 

and a source of much valuable information to the 
teacher. If he so contrives as to allay the self-con- 
sciousness of the pupils — or, preferably, to prevent its 
becoming aroused at all — he is sure of as intimate a 
revelation of the pupils' thoughts and feelings as is 
made in the friendly, informal, face-to-face talks in the 
primary grades. 

Letter themes. — One of the advantages of the letter- 
writing exercises is that topics may be found in every 
branch of study upon which to write interesting letters. 
Even in so unlikely a study as arithmetic there are 
opportunities for helpful practice in the writing of 
business letters, wherein goods are ordered, with 
inclosure of drafts or checks, consignments are made, 
directions are given to agents, and reports are made to 
employers. 

In geography, history, nature-study, and reading, 
there is a wealth of material for letter writing. The 
pupils will take delight in writing descriptive and 
narrative letters from Honolulu, Suez, Barcelona, Ham- 
merf est ; and in writing as though they were with the 
Cabots, or Hudson, or Boone. 

Letters such as are suggested here may be the means 
of correlating with the several branches mentioned 
another — drawing — whose value is of the highest, but 
which too often is not shown to have any practical 
connection with any other work of the school. 

Illustrative drawing. — Of course the drawing 
taught below the high school is all free-hand, and the 
models used to draw from are natural objects. Great 
zest may be given to the drawing exercises if the pupils 
are encouraged to apply what they learn there in 
illustrating their letters, and, later, their essays. It 



296 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

may be seen at once that there is here a very wide 
field for the play of originality and for the useful out- 
flow of the child's natural tendency to express himself 
in drawings — a tendency that spends itself too much 
upon fences, doors, flagstones, and other such places. 
This, like every other natural tendency of the child, 
should be directed and trained in the schoolroom. 

There may be initial letter drawings, page illustrations, 
and tailpieces, the teacher taking occasion to show the 
pupils examples of all these in magazines and books. 

Such illustrations of written composition should be 
suggested, not required ; it will often be found advisable 
to grant its use as a special privilege. 

The drawings will, most of them, doubtless be rather 
crude, but they will be wonderfully suggestive to the 
teacher, very helpful in intensifying and clarifying the 
pupils' impressions and thoughts, and will be a source 
of great pleasure to them. 

The pleasure afforded by these exercises will be in- 
creased if the teacher writes a letter occasionally to 
the whole class, being careful to mention with sympa- 
thetic interest some point in the letter of each pupil. 
The letters the pupils write not only give excellent 
practice in written composition, but they serve admirably 
as fixatives of valuable matters learned in every 
branch. All errors of form, spelling, punctuation, 
syntax, and paragraphing should be marked and the 
letters returned to the pupils. The graver errors should 
be commented upon by the teacher before the class. 

Essay writing. — The next movement toward attain- 
ing ease of correct written expression is in the writing 
of set essays upon definitely assigned themes. The 
purpose still is to drill the pupils into mechanical — 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 297 

which now includes syntactical — accuracy ; that is 
to say, not much if any attention should be paid yet, 
unless in an incidental way, to rhetorical finish or 
smoothness of composition. 

Themes. — Guided by the fundamental ideas that 
there must be sense impression and thought before 
there can be expression, and that all these are depend- 
ent upon interest, the teacher will do well to exercise 
great care in the selection and assignment of themes. 
The only general rule worth giving is — assign at first 
sensory subjects, and assign them, for the most part, in 
harmony with the individual tendencies of the pupils ; 
later, assign themes, occasionally, from history, biogra- 
phy, and literature, and sometimes assign them so as to 
correct or balance certain tendencies. 

Sensory themes. — The sensory themes will be such as 
the pupils can find interesting material upon by their 
own immediate observation. If there are mills or fac- 
tories near, the pupils may visit them ; or the class may 
go together to see a bit of landscape, or some scene 
of historic note. After visiting a brickyard, they will 
write well on " The History of a Brick ; " after seeing 
a sawmill, they can say much on " From Acorn to 
Board;" and " My last Picnic," "A Visit to Grand- 
ma's," or " A Walk in the Woods," will be found fruit- 
ful subjects, when they are real. Often a pupil with a 
tendency to natural history, or one who has a poetic or 
dreamy bent should be given a plain practical subject, 
like " Brickmaking," or " How a Well is dug." On the 
other hand, one who is all for the unadorned, practical 
side of things should occasionally write on the more 
poetic themes. The intermediate school is not the 
place to specialize. 



298 METHOD /AT EDUCATION 

Narration. — It is well to remember that, although 
such themes primarily demand observation, the compo- 
sition should not be wholly — in many instances not 
mainly — descriptive. It requires much practice and 
skill to do descriptive writing even moderately well ; 
the beginner naturally writes in the narrative form. 

Marking papers. — The definite critical marking of 
the written work should begin in the intermediate 
grades. The teacher may at first mark out the errors 
and write the corrections above. This can be made 
very helpful to the beginner, and should be done with 
some thoroughness, albeit it is tedious drudgery for the 
teacher. The corrections should only rarely go into 
the rhetorical structure of the composition ; rhetorical 
criticism belongs in the high school, and above. 

After a while the teacher may save himself a good 
deal of work and serve the interests of the pupils better 
at the same time, by merely indicating the kinds of 
errors, and having the pupils work out the corrections 
themselves. This plan is given in detail on page 306. 
The schedule shown there may be easily modified and 
adapted to the requirements of the intermediate work. 

Rewriting. — It is questionable whether it is ever 
worth while to require a composition to be rewritten in 
full, unless as an occasional rebuke to gross careless- 
ness. The irksomeness of the task more than offsets 
any advantage accruing. But sentences or paragraphs 
that are unusually faulty may have the worst errors 
marked and be indicated for recopying. 

Offhand writing. — Better than rewriting is practice 
in offhand writing. The teacher may read a story, or 
have some pupil do so, or may give a brief biographical 
sketch, or show a picture, and have the pupils immedi- 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 299 

ately reproduce the story or biography, or write a story 
about the picture. Letters may be written, in class, 
from given places, or about certain events. The 
teacher may write upon the board "grass," or " water," 
or " sand," and say, " Take your tablets and write a 
page on this." Or the words, "boy," "dog," "cow," 
" rabbit," may be written on the board, and the class 
requested to write two pages about them, making a 
good " story." These are simply suggestions of many 
ways in which the pupils can be drilled in quick, correct 
written expression under conditions that make it certain 
the composition is their own. This method may be 
carried into any branch which furnishes material for 
written composition. It is advisable for the teacher to 
take up these written exercises in every instance, al- 
though they need not be marked and returned each 
time. 

ORAL COMPOSITION 

Mechanics of oral composition. — While the training 
in written composition is going forward along these 
lines, attention to oral composition is not to be relaxed. 
Practice in the art of using good English must not be 
limited to writing it. Pupils should be so drilled in the 
mechanics of speech that they will come at last to cor- 
rect automatic pronunciation, enunciation, and syntax. 
As the case stands now the critical ear has much to 
endure on the street, in public conveyances, from the 
platform and pulpit, in friendly conversation — in short, 
wherever English speech is heard. By no means the 
least vexing thing about the English heard in these 
places is the tone in which it is uttered. Schools of all 
grades should, of set purpose, do what they can to 



300 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

secure culture of the ear and of the voice, that the one 
may detect and the other correct lack of euphony in 
speech. 

Errors of speech are commoner than errors of writ- 
ing, and are due to ignorance and carelessness — and, 
in this matter, ignorance is due largely to carelessness. 
No one with normal vocal organs and knowledge enough 
to use a dictionary has any excuse to offer for mispro- 
nunciation or slurred enunciation, and there is almost 
none for faulty syntax. 

Training in the recitation. — The standard of good 
speech must be set up in every recitation, and the 
teacher's estimate of the value of an answer should 
include correctness of pronunciation, clearness and full- 
ness of enunciation, and, in the more advanced classes, 
the verbal structure of the answer. The answer to a 
question in history given correctly as regards the sub- 
ject-matter of the history, but carelessly in verbal struc- 
ture and utterance, should no more be accepted by the 
teacher as satisfactory than would a written composi- 
tion on the same topic, which, though correct in histori- 
cal statement, yet violated the rules of form and syntax. 

Every oral recitation affords opportunities for drilling 
in the mechanics of speech ; but a recitation by the 
topic method affords in addition opportunity for valu- 
able practice in somewhat extended oral composition. 
The pupils should be encouraged to take pains with 
the putting together of what they say upon a topic, so 
that it may have attractiveness and force. Definite 
training in forensics should be a part of the teaching in 
English in every school, from the third reader grade up. 
A separate chapter (XIX.) will treat of this subject of 
forensic drill. 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 30 1 



GETTING A VOCABULARY 

To express clearly and adequately it is as necessary 
to have a good vocabulary as it is to have ideas and 
feelings that seek expression ; there must be words 
enough wherewith to express as well as something to 
express. An integral part, therefore, of the carefully 
planned training in language art must be the building 
up of a vocabulary. 

Technical terms. — Every study and every school exer- 
cise may be made to contribute something to this knowl- 
edge of words. It has been insisted upon all along 
that the terms technical to each subject be taught, and 
taught as technical terms, without being softened down 
into inadequate and sometimes silly synonyms. Weak 
and indistinct wording is sure to react into weak and 
indistinct thinking. Nothing so quickly cultivates care 
and accuracy in the use of words, and a true apprecia- 
tion of their values, as the correct use of technical terms. 
So let dividend and divisor, plus and minus, adjective 
and verb, petiole and stamen, and all other such words, 
be taught when the pupil comprehends the things for 
which the words stand. 

The reading lessons. — In the reading lesson there are 
often words that are new to some or all of the pupils ; 
quite frequently a little inquiry will show that words 
that are not new are not well understood. All such 
words should be made into readily used thought carriers ; 
and the way to do this is not by having reading book or 
dictionary definitions committed to memory. Words to 
be understood at all must be understood in their rela- 
tions to one another in the expression of thought and 
feeling. The pupil should, then, learn to make his 



302 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

own definitions from the context, and frequent calls 
upon him to make good sentences in which recently- 
acquired words or phrases are rightly used will test how 
well he has grasped meanings. 

Word hunting. — All children will, if put in love with 
reading, read, at home or in public libraries, much that 
is a good deal more advanced than their reading exer- 
cises at school. The teacher should do everything he 
can to have the pupils form the habit of noting the use 
and pronunciation of each strange word met with in such 
general reading. This habit will do much to counteract 
the tendency to skip new words and to "gobble the 
story." There is as much pleasure and profit to be had 
from the hunting of words and from a carefully discrim- 
inative study of them as from the hunting and classify- 
ing of minerals, or shells, or other things of objective 
nature. 

The specific memory drill generally known as com- 
mitting "memory gems " — selections from good litera- 
ture — is an excellent means of giving the pupil a 
stock of words and phrases that may do good service 
as the vehicles of his own thought. The teacher can 
always readily tell from the composition work which 
pupils are wide readers and which read but little. 

What the high school may expect. — The next step of 
the learner of language art is into the work of the high 
school, and the high school has a clear right to demand, 
as a minimum, that all who begin its work shall be able 
(i) to make a neat manuscript in any kind of written 
work ; (2) to punctuate, capitalize, spell, and paragraph 
with almost automatic correctness; (3) to build sentences 
that shall be syntactically correct; and (4) to express 
thought and feeling with somewhat of clearness and 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 303 

simplicity. Although it is true that a pupil of average 
capacity may be given this equipment with which to 
enter the high school, it is also true that many colleges 
do not demand so much from those seeking admission 
to the Freshman class, and, if they did, would hardly 
find the demand met. 



CHAPTER XIX 

LANGUAGE TRAINING {continued) 
RHETORIC 

All the work in language training below the high 
school is better done without any text-book on com- 
position. The pupil may profitably begin the study 
of a text-book on rhetoric in the first year of the high 
school. 

The scope of rhetoric. — Rhetoric is to the art of 
verbal expression what technical grammar is to sen- 
tence making. It defines terms, formally states and 
sums up what the pupil already knows in a practical 
way, and introduces him to a more extensive knowledge 
along the same lines. Like grammar, rhetoric should, 
as far as possible, be studied inductively ; and definitions, 
principles, and rules should receive the most abundant 
illustration. 

The practice of rhetoric should go right along with 
the theory of it ; the pupils should write, and write 
much, from the first week they enter upon the study of 
the text-book. It was once the fashion, and the like is 
sometimes seen even now, to have the pupils master the 
theory of the text-book, while writing — the putting of the 
theory into actual practice — was incidental; the pupils 
wrote a few "essays " if there was time after they had 
finished the text-book. 

304 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 305 

Two plans for teaching rhetoric. — When the arrange- 
ment of other courses admits of it, the best plan for 
combining rhetorical practice with rhetorical theory is 
to make the use of the text almost wholly subordinate 
and incidental, using it occasionally in the preparation 
of regular lessons, but mainly for reference. The prin- 
cipal work of the pupil, according to this plan, would be 
careful written and oral composition, and the correlative 
study of literature. The themes for composition would 
be drawn from all available sources — history, biogra- 
phy, geography, civics, science, literature ; and the com- 
positions, oral or written, or both, might be delivered in 
the classes from which the themes were taken, or at the 
regular rhetoric period. But criticism, by pupils and 
teacher, upon the rhetorical value and finish of the work 
should be confined to the period devoted to rhetoric and 
literature. 

Another plan. — Another plan, not so good as the one 
just outlined, but perhaps more generally usable, is to 
devote a shorter time to the study of rhetoric, and to 
put as much time and emphasis upon the study of the 
text as upon practice in composition. 

Whichever plan is used, it must be remembered that 
the prime end in view is training in an art ; and, further, 
that oral composition is as important as written. 

CRITICISM OF WORK 
Much has been said and written of late years 
upon the necessity of good training in language art, 
and the deplorable lack of it. One cause of the lack 
has not been emphasized as it should be, and that is 
that thorough training means constant, careful crit- 
icism, and criticism means drudgery for the teacher ; 
roark's meth. — 20 



306 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

hence it has been evaded in one way or another — 
generally by not having the pupils do much composi- 
tion work. 

Methods of criticism. — In criticising composition, 
the teacher must keep two things in mind: (i) that 
the pupil should have the benefit of favorable criticism 
whenever it is deserved; and (2) the pupil should, as 
a rule, correct his errors himself, the teacher merely 
indicating what they are. Whenever the teacher finds, 
in a pupil's composition, any bit of real individuality in 
thought or phrasing, let him not withhold discriminating 
praise. 

Indicating errors. — In the earlier work of the pupil 
the teacher may frequently write in corrections in ex- 
pression ; but in the high school he should only indicate 
errors and require the pupils to correct them. The ad- 
vantages of this are to save work for the teacher and to 
make the pupils do work that is profitable to them. Any 
simple schedule of marks may be adopted to indicate 
errors. The following, which uses the cardinal nu- 
merals, has been found satisfactory in actual practice: 
l, spelling wrong ; 2, capitalization wrong ; 3, punc- 
tuation wrong ; 4, syntax wrong ; 5, poor wording or 
phrasing ; 6, feebleness ; 7, poor order of arrangement 
of matter ; 8, incompleteness ; 9, lack of neatness in 
preparation of manuscript. The teacher can abridge 
this schedule, or extend it to cover other points, as his 
work demands. This schedule may be used conven- 
iently by simply underscoring the faulty word, sen- 
tence, or paragraph, and affixing the proper number. 
Of course, the criticism of oral composition will have to 
be oral, but it can be made to cover the same general 
points and, in addition, the posture and gestures of the 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 307 

speaker, his stage presence, and his pronunciation and 
enunciation. 

Reporting corrections. — The teacher must satisfy 
himself that the errors he marks in written work are 
corrected by the pupils. To this end, the papers, bear- 
ing the teacher's marks, should be returned to the pupils 
one day, and corrections should be reported in class the 
next. The teacher cannot otherwise be sure that the 
pupils have gained, or can gain, any advantage from 
his marking of their papers. It has happened that 
even college students have failed to correct misspelled 
words because of inability to find the correct spellings 
in the dictionary. Grave errors of syntax or rhetoric 
should be corrected by rewriting the sentence or para- 
graph on the board. 

Criticism by pupils. — Occasionally the pupils may 
be allowed to mark one another's written work. This 
criticism by the pupils is not of so much benefit to the 
one criticised as to the critic, but for the latter it is an 
excellent exercise. The teacher will find it worth while 
sometimes to take the essays that have been marked by 
the pupils, and to mark both the errors that have been 
overlooked by the critic, and the critic for overlook- 
ing them. This, however, means double work for the 
teacher. 

Criticism by pupils of one another is also of value, 
under discreet direction by the teacher, in oral composi- 
tion ; it cultivates attention in the critics, and careful- 
ness in the speaker. 

In this grade, as in the lower, much writing and 
speaking should be done without being made the sub- 
ject of criticism, except in a general, or a commenda- 
tory, way. Criticism can be very easily overdone ; the 



308 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

consciousness of being subject constantly to criticism 
benumbs pupils, prevents their best work, and eventu- 
ally diminishes or destroys interest. Expression should, 
as far as possible, be free and spontaneous ; let the pupil 
write and speak often without feeling that he is to be 
criticised. 

THE GROUND TO BE COVERED 

A text-book in rhetoric should be selected with regard 
for the amount of emphasis it places upon the follow- 
ing topics: (i) the several kinds of oral and written 
composition ; (2) selection of theme, and collection and 
arrangement of material ; (3) word values ; (4) the sen- 
tence and the paragraph ; (5) figures of speech and 
qualities of style ; (6) versification, or metrics. 

Illustrations of these in literature. — Each of these 
points is not only to be studied in the text-book, but is 
to receive abundant illustration in the reading and the 
literature classes, and is to be practiced upon in the 
pupils' writing and speaking. No text-book can con- 
tain sufficient illustrative matter, and it is well enough 
to have it so, since what the average pupil finds outside 
his text-book seems, usually, of more value to him than 
what he finds in it. It will be seen at once, then, that 
opportunity to refer to good and varied literature is 
necessary to the adequate teaching or learning of 
rhetoric. 

Illustrations in the pupils' work. — All the topics 
mentioned above as demanding special attention in the 
study of rhetoric must be illustrated not only from good 
literature, but by the practice work of the pupils. One 
of the greatest wastes of energy in the studying and 
teaching of rhetoric is the frequent practice of merely 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 309 

having the pupils "write essays" at stated intervals, 
without any particular regard to having them written in 
the definite departments of rhetoric. The term " essay " 
should be used in its true meaning to denote a particular 
kind' of writing, a kind which, it is pleasant to note, is 
coming into favor again, even in the modern fiction- 
saturated literary atmosphere. Pupils under training 
in language art ought to write not only essays — using 
the word rightly — but fiction, biography, history, trea- 
tises, poetry, orations, and arguments. 

Selection and statement of theme. — As a rule, the 
teacher himself should, until the pupils have advanced 
beyond the study of the text-book, select the themes for 
writing or speaking ; and they should be selected in 
accordance with the suggestions made in the preceding 
chapter. As the pupils grow more practiced and ma- 
ture, they can be allowed greater liberty to select their 
own themes, and in the last year of the high school they 
should be required, as a part of their training, to select 
and properly state the subjects. Much of the attrac- 
tiveness and value of an essay, a lecture, or a story, can 
be exhibited in the title. 

Collection and arrangement of material. — One of the 
things most essential to good composition is the skillful 
making of notes, the preservation of material that comes 
through observation or reading, or as the result of turn- 
ing one's subject over in the mind. Another essen- 
tial thing is the proper arrangement of all material in 
some clear sequence in the composition. Neither 
the selection nor the arrangement of material re- 
ceives, often, more than very slight attention from the 
teacher. The pupil needs careful and specific training 
in both. This training ought to begin below the high 



310 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

school, and the pupil should be required, before writing 
on any subject, to submit an outline, or "brief," of his 
theme. These outlines should be discussed by teacher 
and pupils as a class exercise. Many an otherwise good 
lecture, sermon, or paper has been spoiled by lack of 
logical arrangement of subject-matter. 

1 1 Sight work" in composition. — For the same rea- 
sons that there is "sight reading" by the beginner, 
from chart or blackboard, and by the student of foreign 
languages, and sight work in arithmetic and geometry, 
there ought also to be much sight work in composition. 
It is an excellent plan for the teacher, occasionally, 
when the class is not expecting such an exercise, to put 
into a box as many subjects, written upon slips of paper, 
as there are pupils in the class, and let each draw one ; 
each pupil is then immediately called on to speak five 
minutes, or to write a page, clearly, connectedly, cor- 
rectly, upon the subject he drew. Such an exercise is 
greatly enjoyed by the pupils as an excellent drill in 
quick thinking and ready expression — much better, 
in some ways, than the set exercises in writing and 
speaking. 

Word values and sentence building. — Two of the 
most interesting, as well as most valuable, lines of 
rhetorical study are the origins and values of words, 
and how they have been and may be built into sentences 
so as to produce strength, clearness, beauty, and the 
other elements of the best written and oral composi- 
tion. At no other point in the course of rhetoric is 
a close study of the best models so necessary, and 
although thorough work in these topics will have to 
be left to later and more mature researches in litera- 
ture, still much can be profitably done in the first 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 311 

or second year of the high school. While the pupils 
are working under this topic, their composition should 
be done with special reference to it, and what is 
learned should come out in all the pupils' practice 
thereafter. 

Figures of speech and qualities of style. — It should 
be wholly unnecessary to say anything of the need of 
studying the rhetorical figures and the elements of style 
more thoroughly than by learning the definitions from 
a text-book; but it is an unfortunate fact that many 
classes in rhetoric are never given an opportunity to 
study these from original sources, and too few Fresh- 
men know the difference between metonymy and 
hyperbole. All this is still more true of metrics. 
Certainly the boy or girl who "finishes rhetoric" 
in the high school ought to be able both to recognize 
the different kinds of English poetry and the dif- 
ferent meters in which they are written, and to ap- 
preciate the adaptability and fitness of each mode of 
poetic expression to the thought and emotion to be 
expressed. 

Rhetoric and literature. — Such teaching of rhetoric 
must be in connection with literature, but its study 
is, properly, only introductory to that of literature. 
It is not forgotten that in earlier pages of this 
book the position was taken that all the pupils' 
reading, from the very first, must be a reading of 
good literature, but there is much difference between 
an unconscious assimilation of literature and a con- 
scious, analytic, sympathetic study of it. Such a study 
is meant when it is said that rhetoric is introductory 
to the study of literature. 



312 METHOD IN EDUCATION 



LITERATURE 

A literary "laboratory." — It is to be said at the 
very beginning of any discussion of this topic, that 
the only way to make effective what has been so 
frequently and justly said in late years about study- 
ing literature instead of studying about literature, is 
to teach it with the aid of a well-furnished literary 
laboratory — that is, a library filled with the best 
literature of the past and of to-day. To undertake 
to teach literature adequately without free access for 
the students to a well-stocked library is like under- 
taking to irrigate a garden without water. 

Literature itself the main issue. — There is no good 
reason why the study of the biography of great 
writers and the study of the history of literature should 
not go along with the study and enjoyment of litera- 
ture itself ; but the literature must all the time be the 
main issue, and the biography and the history must 
be incidental and subordinate. It is much better that 
a student should know and feel " Hiawatha " than 
that he should know the life of Longfellow, sweet and 
simple and helpful as that life was ; it is much better 
that he should be able really to read " The Mer- 
chant of Venice " than that he should know Shak- 
spere as a writer of the Elizabethan Period. But as 
a matter of fact, if the student appreciates literature 
and feels its deep inspiration, he will not be content 
until he also has some knowledge of the lives of the 
men and women who have written and spoken for 
him — knows what sort of people they were, and 'in 
what times, with what contemporaries, and under 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 313 

what environment, they lived and worked. The text- 
book on literature should be used mainly for reference ; 
the first aim is to cultivate a discriminating taste for 
good literature — a taste that shall go with the student 
through all his after years, and be to him a well- 
spring of enjoyment, and, many times, a means of 
salvation. 

Wide reading. — To secure this end, the first re- 
quirement is that pupils shall do much reading, at 
first, perhaps, without more than the most general 
direction. Nothing would be lost and much could be 
gained by having students take a course of general 
reading arranged upon broad lines, for a half year 
after they are through with the text-book on rhetoric, 
and before they take up the regular study of litera- 
ture. The reading should be done under the direction 
of the teacher, who should advise and suggest, but 
should make but little effort to have analytical study 
of what is read. Students and teacher might meet 
occasionally to talk over, in an informal way, what 
had been read. 

Analytical study. — When the regular study of 
literature is begun it should be analytic and sym- 
pathetically critical. The analysis should for the 
most part be a search for and estimate of subjec- 
tive and rhetorical values, but it should proceed 
sometimes so far as the syntax of the sentences. 
Sculptors are close students of anatomy, and observe 
its laws in their most artistic work ; so, too, must the 
writer and speaker — word artists, both — be close 
students of syntax, and follow its laws. And as the 
critic of the sculptor's art must have a knowledge of 
anatomy in order to appreciate the beauty or strength 



314 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

preserved in marble and bronze, and to admire the 
art which shows some unusual but true tension or 
repose of muscle, so the student of literary art must 
go to the anatomy of the sentence in order to un- 
derstand the power of the artist in his use of word 
or phrase. 

The following methods of investigation have been 
used with pleasure and profit to teacher and students, 
and it is hoped that teachers of literature, whether 
in the country schools or in the colleges, may find 
something in what follows adaptable to their several 
needs. 

Each student should be provided with the same book 
— not a text-book about literature, but a copy of Shak- 
spere, or Hawthorne, or Kipling. These books should 
be supplied from the library, but in case there is no 
library, paper-bound copies of the world's standard 
authors may be had, at very small cost. 

In the recitations the pupils should, ordinarily, have 
book in hand, and the discussion should be, as nearly as 
possible, a friendly, cordial talk by teacher and students, 
guided sympathetically by the teacher along such lines 
as are suggested in the " plans " next given. 



General Plan for the Study of Literature 

A reading through of the composition : — 

(i) To determine its purpose, — that is, whether it is to in- 
struct, to amuse, to arouse, to persuade ; and to what 
end the writer strives to do either of these. 

(2) To determine whether this purpose has been attained. 

(3) To mark certain passages for rereading and closer analy- 

sis. 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 315 

II. A rereading: — 

(1) To discover the elements of strength, unity, harmony, or 

the causes of a lack of these. 

(2) To discover the elements of beauty, whether of thought 

or diction or both. 

(3) To discover the elements of other rhetorical effects 

and values (using for reference, in advanced classes, 
Karnes's "Elements of Criticism, ,, and Blair's "Rhet- 
oric," both standard books). 

(4) To trace out fully mythologic, historical, or literary allu- 

sions. 

(5) To study new words, and note new meanings of familiar 

words. 

(6) To characterize the style of the writer. 

(7) To commit to memory a few choice quotations. 

These points will serve also, with slight modification, 
in the criticism of an oration or lecture while it is being 
listened to. 

How the foregoing general suggestions may be spe- 
cifically applied is shown in this — 

Lesson Plan upon "A Tale of Two Cities." 

I. As to the story as a whole. 

After the book has been read by all in the class, the recitation 
may be directed by the following questions, for the full 
discussion of which several recitation periods will be 
needed : — 

(1) What was Dickens's leading purpose in writing this story? 

Was it attained ? What minor purposes of. the writer 
appear in the story? 

(2) Wherein does this book differ in purpose and in style 

from " Martin Chuzzlewit " (for example) ? What is 
the essence of the story's plot ? 

(3) What are the chief characters in the book, and are they 

clearly drawn ? Are they true to life ? Which charac- 
ter is most prominent, and why? 



316 METHOD /AT EDUCATION 

(4) Give a short synopsis of what you consider the three 

strongest scenes. Why did you select those three? 

(5) What is the ethical value of the book? 

(6) State briefly the characteristics of the period of history 

that is used as the setting of the story. 

(7) Quote from memory one or two passages. 

II. As to the rhetorical elements. 

(1) How would you characterize the style of Dickens as 

shown in this story? What oddities or mannerisms 
of style did you note ? 

(2) Quote or read some passages illustrating the writer's 

power of characterization. Which of the characters 
of the book seem most clearly and strongly drawn ? 

(3) What rhetorical figures are most used? Give passages 

illustrating two or three different figures. 

(4) Are there many or few allusions to mythology, history, 

and other literature ? What are some of them ? 

(5) What new or unusual words did you note? Give their 

derivations and the meanings with which Dickens 
used them. 

After the students have grown familiar with this or 
some similar scheme of analysis, the work may be 
varied by assigning a separate book, essay, or poem, to 
each pupil, and having each in turn discuss what was 
assigned him, applying to it all the points of the scheme 
in order. This reading of a whole piece of literature 
according to some plan for discovering its purpose, its 
beauties, — all of its characteristics, — followed by an 
attempt to interpret these to other interested students, 
is one of the surest means of putting the pupil into vital 
touch with literature and enabling him to draw from it 
both intellectual and ethical culture. 

The less the exercises in the study of literature are 
like formal recitations the more enjoyable they will be, 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 317 

and the more profitable. A mere formal analysis of a 
composition is as destructive of its literary beauty and 
aroma as the picking to pieces of a flower is of its 
beauty and perfume. 

Memory exercises. — A most valuable part of the work 
in literature is to commit permanently to memory much 
choice matter. Such memorizing not only strengthens 
a faculty whose proper development has been somewhat 
neglected, but also has results of the highest cultural 
and ethical value. The practice of committing selec- 
tions should begin almost as soon as the child learns to 
read, and need never be discontinued. 

A pleasant variation in these memory exercises is 
made by the teacher's giving a quotation, or having 
some pupil do so, and calling upon the class to " locate " 
it. 

Collateral reading. — While the careful study of type 
compositions in literature is going on, there ought also 
to be a good deal of collateral reading required, little 
or none of which need be made a subject of regular 
class discussion. Everything should be done to arouse 
and cultivate an appetite for good literature of all 
kinds. Such an appetite is the best possible safeguard 
for all time against worthless and injurious printed 
matter. 

Written composition. — Written composition will, of 
course, continue throughout the study of literature, 
and should gain much in excellence from the analysis 
of style and the study of words and sentence values. 
As an occasional exercise a written synopsis of some 
piece of literature may be required. Much attention 
should now be given, by both writer and critic, to the 
literary quality of the composition. 



METHOD IN EDUCATION 



FORENSICS 



Nothing can give a better training in the art of using 
words to express feeling and thought than the group of 
exercises included under the term " forensics," here used 
to designate not only argumentative discourse — to which 
it is limited by the dictionaries — but any kind of com- 
position which is delivered orally. Carefully directed 
exercises in oral discourse are of the highest value, 
first, as training in expression ; and, second, for their 
practical utility in all the affairs of life. 

Value of forensics. — The psychological value of 
expression — the fact that it intensifies and clarifies im- 
pression, whether objective or subjective — cannot be 
overstated ; and the drill in forensics is or should be 
very specifically a training in expression. 

The advantages of skill in oral discourse are no less 
marked in the everyday concerns of life. Not only do 
the lawyer, the minister, the legislator, the diplomat, 
and the teacher (more than all others) need, as a 
ready tool with which to work, the ability to think and 
talk on their feet, but the merchant, the handworker, 
the plain, hard-headed man of affairs — all have many 
occasions wherein power to speak to their fellows with 
clearness and cogency would be of the greatest possible 
service. 

Should be provided for in all schools. — The organiza- 
tion of every school, from the rural school to the univer- 
sity, should provide definitely for teaching forensics. In 
elementary schools, where the exercises consist chiefly 
of simple declamations, dialogues, and readings, the 
work is necessarily under the direction of the regular 
teacher of the other branches; there should be no 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 319 

departmental teaching in this, any more than in any- 
thing else, below the high school. But from the high 
school on, forensics should be under the care of a 
trained specialist, and should be a required branch, 
being no more left to the initiative of students, self- 
organized into " literary societies," than science or 
mathematics is. 

Forensics in the lower grades. — Training in the power 
to speak easily and forcefully while standing before an 
audience should begin in the second grade. All the 
earlier exercises should have as their objects mainly 
the cultivation of memory, and training in the me- 
chanics of oral delivery, no original work being at- 
tempted below the seventh or eighth grade, and but 
little in those. 

Of course, in a very important sense, every class in 
which there are formal recitations is a parliamentary 
body, where each pupil receives some training in the 
art of putting his thoughts together and uttering them 
intelligibly to his fellow-pupils and teacher. In addition 
to this, in the two grades just below the high school, 
class discussions, or elementary debates, may very prof- 
itably be introduced. There are numerous questions 
in history, civics, and the reading lessons, which readily 
enlist the interest of the pupils upon different sides, 
and into the discussion of which they may be easily 
drawn without being conscious of the fact that they 
are actually debating. Later, questions for discussion 
in class should occasionally be regularly assigned by the 
teacher, and leaders should be appointed for both sides. 

Debating. — Thus will be easily introduced debating, 
one of the very best possible means of training the 
mind in many desirable qualities — in sureness and 



320 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

quickness of memory, in clearness of logical judgment, 
in broad tolerance of opinions other than one's own, in 
alertness and soundness in defending a position, and 
in readiness and exactness of expression. 

The very fact that a debate is a contest makes it far 
more stimulating and provocative of effort than either 
an essay or an oration. As a result, there will be more 
assiduity in the search for material, in the careful 
arrangement of it, in the marshaling of facts and the 
drawing of conclusions therefrom ; attention will be 
paid to securing strength rather than mere rhetorical 
beauty ; and almost necessarily there will be more 
sincerity and vigor in the delivery of an argument than 
in that of an essay or oration. A fatal weakness of 
much college oratory is its lack of sincerity, its attempt 
to attract by mere rhetorical phrasing rather than by 
sincerity of purpose. The same principles that guide 
in the selection and assignment of themes for written 
composition should govern also in the case of debating. 
" Resolved, that the pen is mightier than the sword " is 
no more a suitable question for discussion than " Beyond 
the Alps lies Italy " is a suitable theme for an essay. It 
is most gratifying to note that many colleges now give 
training in f orensics, — and the intercollegiate debate 
is much to be preferred to the intercollegiate football 
game. 

Parliamentary practice. — Along with the debating, 
and beginning almost as soon as it does, must go a 
training in parliamentary usage ; in a representative 
form of government it is almost as necessary as specific 
instruction and training in citizenship. The incapacity 
of many educated people to preside over or take part 
properly in a meeting is astounding, not to say inex- 



LANGUAGE TRAINING 32 1 

cusable. The man or woman ignorant of parliamen- 
tary practice is, no matter how well armed with a 
righteous cause, at the mercy of the parliamentary 
tactician. The many women's clubs throughout the 
country are paying more attention to this matter of 
parliamentary training than any other agency; but 
if the schools had done their full duty there would be 
no need of " coaching " people how to make or how to 
put motions. 

In all these ways — and more that will suggest them- 
selves to a teacher having the matter at heart — the 
training should begin that shall give to every pupil — to 
some more, to others less — keen appreciation of the 
strength and beauty of the English language, and skill 
in using it as an everyday tool, as an artist's brush, or 
as a weapon. 

roark's meth. — 21 



CHAPTER XX 
CHARACTER BUILDING 

Character the supreme end. — All true method in 
education has as its ultimate and highest aim the build- 
ing of individual character — revealing to the individual 
all his capacities, and making him master and director 
of them. What does not result in this supreme end is 
not education, whatever text-books or apparatus may be 
used in acquiring it, however many years may be spent 
upon it. 

Character of three kinds. — A discussion of character 
as the true objective point of education too often loses 
sight of the fact that as education is threefold, so is 
its result, character, threefold. Stated specifically, the 
aim of physical education is physical character, of 
intellectual education, intellectual character, and of the 
education of the moral feelings and the will, moral 
character. 

The source of all character is within the individual 
himself ; it can no more be put into him from the out- 
side than new tissue can be put into the body from the 
outside. All real growth, physical or psychic, is the 
result of the reaction of inner activity upon some kind 
of nutrition or stimulus. The function of the teacher, 
in character building, is to modify or furnish environ- 
ment, and stimulate this inner activity to react upon it. 

322 



CHARACTER BUILDING 323 

The laws of character building. — The laws of char- 
acter making are very simple, and are the same for all 
three phases. They are (1) the law of self -activity , and 
(2) the law of habit. Like all other fundamental laws, 
they are, though simple in themselves, varied and com- 
plex in their applications. 

By the law of self-activity is meant that body and 
mind are both naturally active, — that muscle and 
nerve and psychic faculty are so constituted as to 
function by reason of their own inherent life and 
energy, and to function pleasurably. Biologically and 
psychologically, the price of life is activity — use. 
When any organ or faculty ceases to function, it de- 
generates and atrophy begins. There would be but 
little activity if it were not pleasurable; hence the 
pleasurableness of activity is essential to the health 
and normal growth of body and mind. While this is 
true, the converse is not necessarily true. All normal 
activity is pleasurable, but, under the artificial condi- 
tions of civilized life, not all pleasurable activity is 
normal and healthful. To perceive and apply this dis- 
tinction in directing the pupils' activities requires the 
most careful discrimination and management upon the 
part of the teacher. The natural tendency of steam is 
to expand, and it is this that makes it serviceable ; but, 
to make the tendency useful, the vapor must be made to 
exercise its force in certain directions. The nature of 
powder is to explode ; but to make the explosion benefi- 
cial it must occur under properly arranged conditions. 
So with the activity of the child ; every muscle and 
every mental faculty tingles with the tendency to func- 
tion, but on account of the child's ignorance the func- 
tioning needs guidance — not repression. The teacher 



324 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

would find " discipline " much easier, and the need of it 
very infrequent, if he would conform to this principle 
and would devise means of directing rather than of 
restraining pupils' natural activities. 

Spontaneity. — A very essential feature of this natural 
activity is its spontaneity, and the more the teacher can 
preserve this spontaneity, keeping the child — at first, 
at least — as free as possible from a consciousness of 
being restrained or directed, the better the results ob- 
tained. Here is found a reason why formal calisthen- 
ics so often become distasteful to children. In Germany 
the play of school children is more or less under formal 
direction, and the results are not so good as in England, 
where school sports are spontaneous. The same thing 
finds illustration in the psychic realm ; any teacher can 
testify that five minutes of the spontaneous, interested 
activity of a pupil's mind is worth an hour of forced 
attention. 

The law of habit. — By the law of habit is meant that 
movements, feelings, thoughts, tend, by repetition, to 
become permanently established. A muscle contracting 
a certain way, tends to contract in the same way again, 
and a third time the tendency is stronger still ; finally, 
the impulse striving constantly to move along a path of 
least resistance, a muscle habit is formed. Emotions, 
modes of thought, acts of will, become, in like fashion, 
matters of habit. And character of any kind is activity 
become habitual. 

The work of the teacher, then, in character training, 
is rightly to direct and employ the natural activities of 
the pupil until their right functioning becomes habitual. 
And here, again, it must be remembered that activity 
best becomes habitual when it is spontaneous ; so, even 



CHARACTER BUILDING 325 

if at first there must be some coercion from without, no 
permanent character can be formed except by enlisting 
the active, cooperating, and lasting interest of the pupil, 
thus making his activity spontaneous. There is no real 
government except ^^"-government ; the individual must 
have possession of himself — his muscles, his intellectual 
powers, his feelings, his impulses of whatever sort. In 
so far as any voluntary organ of the body, any faculty 
of the intellect, or any tendency to action is not under 
the ready control of the will, just so far is the character 
— in the broad sense — defective. The constant aim of 
ethical training is to give the pupil j-^-propulsion and 
.ri^control. 

PHYSICAL CHARACTER 

Many teachers feel no responsibility for the physical 
character of their pupils, and in this they only reflect 
the indifference of communities and boards of trustees. 
When people consider the matter at all, they still think 
that the concern of the teacher is with the imparting of 
information in the school subjects, and with "making 
the pupils behave," and this is about all that the public 
demands of teachers, whether in the one room country 
school or in the university. 

When it comes universally to be not only accepted as 
an educational theory, that the aim of education must 
be character, — completeness of righteous living by the 
individual, — but felt as an educational necessity, then 
the public will demand of teachers that pupils shall come 
forth from the schools sounder in body than when they 
went in, as well as intellectually and morally stronger. 
The time is past for supposing, or permitting, the scholar's 
brow to be " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 



326 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Physical habits. — If the principles here enunciated 
are true, freedom must be given to the physical organs 
to function normally, and all spontaneous activities that 
contribute to this freedom are to be encouraged. Simple 
habits that any teacher can do much to help his pupils 
form, and that aid greatly in establishing physical 
character, are the habits of erect carriage in sitting, 
standing, and walking, the habit of cleanliness, hygienic 
habits of eating and drinking, and habits of proper 
dressing. Time taken in showing pupils the value of 
these and in training in them is time excellently spent. 
If any teacher should say at this point, " Here is 
mere common-place," the answer must be, " Granted ; 
but look over your roomful of pupils and see whether 
the habits themselves are common." The teacher 
must remember that it is as much his business to 
train a pupil out of a slumping posture or a shuffling 
gait as to train him out of forgetfulness or indistinct 
utterance. 

If a child is in normal health and has opportunity for 
natural play out of doors, the muscles will attend to their 
own development, by reason of their inherent tendency 
to function. School boards, then, everywhere must 
somehow be brought to recognize the necessity of 
providing playgrounds sufficient to meet the require- 
ments of growing children for outdoor exercise ; and 
teachers must give as free a rein as possible to the 
spontaneous play of the children. It may occasionally 
become necessary to direct their activities into sports 
that are safer or that give more varied employment to 
the muscles than the games to which pupils sometimes 
give themselves too constantly and too arduously. In 
such cases the new games proposed by the teacher 



CHARACTER BUILDING 327 

must be made more attractive than those that are to be 
abandoned. 

In the country as well as in the city, the outdoor 
play should be supplemented by specific training in 
calisthenics and marching, both of which can be made 
delightful to the pupils and serviceable in cultivating a 
most desirable esprit de corps. 

Gymnasium training. — When boards of education 
know and feel their duty fully, no high school, college, 
or university will be without its gymnasium, equipped 
with proper apparatus, and in charge of a competent 
director whose business is the development of physical 
character. The exercises required may easily be made 
sufficiently interesting to afford all the advantage gained 
from spontaneous sport ; and the gymnasium work need 
not interfere with purely voluntary athletics outside 
of it. 

MENTAL CHARACTER 

The term "mental" is to be understood as including 
intellectual and moral, and these two phases of 
character are so blended and so interdependent that 
they cannot be satisfactorily discussed separately. All 
good intellectual habits contribute much to the strength- 
ening of the ethical character, — as, for example, care- 
fulness of observation, quickness of thought, accuracy, 
— and moral habits rise out of conditions or acts of the 
intellect ; there must be thought before there can be 
definite ethical motive or action. 

Evasion of responsibility. — One count in the indict- 
ment brought against the modern public school is, that 
the teacher is too prone to feel that he has no vital 
concern with his pupils except to sharpen their wits, — 



328 METHOD IN EDUCATION' 

that it is not particularly an affair of his if they turn 
out quick-witted rascals. On the other hand, there 
seems to be a tendency in modern society to turn over 
all the training of children to the schools, and their 
control to curfew ordinances. 

In this evasion of responsibility lies a very grave 
danger, not only to the individual, but to the community. 
The school should, of right, be expected to strengthen 
and extend the work of the home in character making. 
But if this all-important matter is neglected in the home, 
then more than ever is it true that the integrity of the 
republic is in the keeping of the schools. 

There is needed first a revival of the plain and homely 
virtues which are fundamental to sound character. 

The homely virtues fundamental. — It was expected 
of the old-time teacher that he would pay quite as much 
attention to these as to the " branches of learning." It 
ought still to be true that the public should consider no 
school justified of its existence out of which the pupils 
do not come well grounded in habits of cotirtesy, obedi- 
ence, and honesty. Each of these words is here used 
in a somewhat more extended sense than attaches to 
it ordinarily. 

Courtesy. — True courtesy rests upon the Golden Rule, 
and so reaches farther than to the mere external con- 
ventions of life, which, though they greatly diminish 
the friction of our contact with one another, are yet not 
essentials. It reaches far enough to mean unselfish 
helpfulness, respect for real character under whatever 
garb, and reverence for things usually esteemed as 
sacred. In sharp contrast with this real courtesy of the 
heart are too often seen in children and in adults a 
selfish disregard for the material comfort and the feel- 



CHARACTER BUILDING 329 

ings of others, and a smart flippancy toward superiors 
in place or age, and toward the sacred things of life. 

Obedience. — Obedience to authority is absolutely nec- 
essary for the good of both the individual and the com- 
munity. The thing which, perhaps more than any 
other, gives foreign critics ground for questioning the 
permanent strength of our institutions, is an apparently 
increasing disregard, in this country, of law and legally 
constituted authority. It is easy to find the sources of 
this weakness in the relaxed discipline of the home and 
the school. 

But a return to the external, coercive measures in 
vogue a half century ago is not here advocated. Let 
both parent and teacher remember that real obedience 
comes from within ; that children have a right to be 
shown the value of obedience ; and that they will yield 
it much more cheerfully and effectively if their innate 
sense of right is satisfied. Excellent opportunity for 
showing the need of obedience is afforded in even 
the elementary work in civics — opportunity which the 
teacher should fully improve. 

The disobedient child will grow into the disobedient 
man or woman, and of such is the lower world of 
unhappy brawlers and criminals. 

Honesty. — To be honest is something more than to 
refrain from taking or withholding other people's prop- 
erty, — something more, even, than to have no desire to 
take what is not one's own. To be honest is to have 
a deep and abiding sense of the necessity of meeting 
fully all one's obligations of whatever kind. We say of 
a boy or man who has this sort of honesty that he is 
reliable, trustworthy \ — that he has integrity, — and it is 
restful and satisfying to have dealings with such a one. 



330 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The teacher turns with relief from the shifty, self-excus- 
ing pupil to the honest one ; everybody rests confidently 
upon the promises of the honest man. 

Perfect, lucid honesty is even a rarer virtue than 
truthfulness ; a man may be truthful as far as his 
knowledge goes and still fall somewhat short of being 
honest. Honesty really includes truthfulness ; there 
cannot be perfect honesty without truthfulness of word 
and act. 

The boy or girl who goes out of the school innately 
courteous, promptly obedient, and unreservedly honest, 
is well panoplied for any struggle. 

But while it is true that these come first in importance 
among the things that may justly be demanded of the 
schools, there are other habits of mind that are needed 
in order to wrest a full measure of success from the 
conditions of life. 

Intellectual habits. — In the sharp competition of the 
modern struggle for something more than mere exist- 
ence, constant need is found for a sound intellectual 
character made manifest in the trained power to ob- 
serve, to attend, — that is, to concentrate effort, — to 
gain general concepts and draw correct conclusions, 
and to express, in some manner, with readiness and 
accuracy. 

These characteristics mark, in greater or less degree, 
the man and woman of innate strength of mind, whether 
they have had schooling or not ; and many minds lack 
them, even after a long schooling — pewter cannot be 
brought to a cutting edge. But every school should be 
so organized as to afford to all who have capacity to 
do so, full opportunity to develop intellectual character, 
strong, lasting, and useful. 



CHARACTER BUILDING 33 1 

v 

At the risk of tedious repetition, it must be said again 
that no character is enduring unless it has grown up 
within the individual, and is bone of his bone. Char- 
acter forced upon him from the outside will always 
remain outside like a garment, and will sooner or later 
slough off. The daily papers publish numerous in- 
stances of this. 

For the teacher the question is : How can I, day by 
day, without the use of more coercion than is absolutely 
necessary to steady the pupil in his right purposes, in- 
duce the activity of all motives that tend to righteousness 
of mind and heart ? 

Feeling, will, and character. — The question is prima- 
rily one of motives — of interest in one form or another, 
since all motives are generically named by the term " in- 
terest." Although knowledge is necessary to awaken 
feeling, to arouse interest, it is by no means enough to 
insure action. The vigorous appetites of the healthy 
body are its motives ; without them it would lose health 
and life. The knowledge that food, sleep, and exercise 
are essential to physical health is not by any means 
enough to insure our taking them properly ; there must 
be a real hunger for them that will not be denied. So 
a child may know — and any child of six does know — 
what is right, and yet not do the right, for lack of 
strong feeling. Mere knowledge is not protective or 
effective even in the case of the adult ; knowledge must 
sink down deep into the feelings, must become kinetic 
as motive. Laurie forcefully says : " The virtuous life is 
not a life of contemplation, but of action. . . . We do 
not wish to rear citizens who talk about the virtuous life, 
and walk about displaying moral placards, but citizens 
who quietly do their duty as a matter of course, and are 



332 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

ever watchful over themselves in all the details of busi- 
ness and of social and family intercourse." 

But too often motive is allowed, through some defect 
of will, to evaporate without becoming effective. The 
teacher should be careful not to arouse feeling without 
so managing that some of it shall spend itself in action. 
To this end will must be developed, and will is like mus- 
cle — it gains strength from use. 

Character the result of assimilation. — Character, as 
an inner growth, is the result of assimilation. Physical 
character is the result of nutrition, the healthy assimi- 
lation of food ; and whatever contributes to nutrition 

— rest, sleep, exercise, cleanliness, complete breathing 

— helps to make the character of the body. 

The value of ideals. — Mental character — sound intel- 
lect and sound morals — is just as much the result of the 
healthy activity of the mind's assimilative powers. Judg- 
ment, imagination, feeling, will, all work together to pro- 
duce character. In this case assimilation has a double 
significance. The mind not only appropriates to its own 
growth such sense acquisitions and concepts as will 
afford it nutriment, converting them, so to say, into 
its own fiber and substance, but it comes also to shape 
itself after the model of ideals of its own creation — to 
assimilate itself to them. In the truest sense we make 
ourselves after our own images, conforming ourselves to 
our own ideals, and it is of the utmost importance that 
right ideals shall be formed. 

THE SOURCES OF IDEALS 

The sources from which the active mind of youth 
draws its ideals are abundant and varied. Material 
environment, the companionship of fellows, the conduct 



CHARACTER BUILDING 333 

of adults, the thousand things that make up " home influ- 
ence," the ordinary daily employments, and whatever 
reading matter is accessible, all these are seized upon, 
and out of the elements they furnish ideals are formed. 

Esthetic environment. — One of the tardiest steps to 
be taken in educational progress is the one which has 
resulted from the recognition of the influence of material 
environment upon manners and morals. Now from 
every quarter — from the country school with its few 
cheap pictures on the wall, as well as from the city with 
its new high school building adorned with facsimiles of 
the choicest specimens of Greek art — comes testimony 
to the direct and powerful influence which aesthetic en- 
vironment exerts upon character. Under such influence 
lessons are better and more readily learned, discipline is 
easier, and life is more abundant for both pupils and 
teachers. Surely, some day the people and school boards 
that represent them will be convinced that no money can 
be ill spent that makes schoolhouses and school-grounds 
models of comfort and beauty. 

The social factor. — The teacher too easily forgets, in 
the midst of his work with books and the " branches of 
learning," that the child is a part of the social organism, 
and that the social factor in character building cannot 
safely be neglected. His life takes form and color from 
his associates of whatever age ; innate imitativeness leads 
him to do, with dangerous unconsciousness, what he sees 
those around him doing. So some idle word uttered by 
an elder, the conversation of a companion of his own 
age, a street scene, the conduct, or even the dress, of 
the teacher, may, any one or all of them, profoundly 
modify the ideal which, through all the formative years, 
is slowly evolving. 



334 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

The control of these things, outside of his own per- 
sonal influence, is but little in the hands of the teacher. 
Responsibility rests upon him, however, to hold up, in 
one form or another, a high ideal of society and of the 
relations of the boy and girl thereto. For this, oppor- 
tunities are abundant in the teaching of history and 
civics. 

The teacher's personality. — No element in a child's 
school experience counts for so much in the unconscious 
or conscious making of ideals as the personality and 
directive power of the teacher, if the child is affected 
by these at all. It is a peculiar fact that some pupils do 
not seem to be touched for good or ill by the teacher's 
personal influence, while others grow either to hate 
everything for which, in their minds, the teacher stands, 
or to model their own characters so closely upon the 
teacher's as even to imitate his walk and mannerisms 
of speech. As a rule, however, the teacher's character, 
whether good or bad, creeps into the ideals of his pupils 
in direct proportion to the pedagogical soundness of his 
teaching. The best thing a teacher can do for his pupils 
is to give them himself freely. I am speaking now not 
only of the teacher of children, but of the college pro- 
fessor also. The best any teacher has, or is, is none too 
good for the pupils — belongs by inherent right to the 
pupils, by virtue of their being such. He is unworthy 
and unfit, who would teach, but is not willing to spend 
his clearest thought, his richest feeling, his ripest experi- 
ences, upon his pupils. All the reading, all the travel, 
all the social opportunity, all the good and true, that 
enter into the teacher's life, should be distilled into 
his teaching. But even so much may be done, and the 
teacher may yet fall short of his highest duty and highest 



CHARACTER BUILDING 335 

privilege. These things are his best acquisitions — they 
are not himself — and they may be shared with the pupils 
without much expenditure of the real self. A teacher 
may give freely of these things, and yet be utterly self- 
ish, serving his own ends and satisfying his own pride. 
To make the gift worth most, there must go with it love 
and sympathy. There must be the vital and quicken- 
ing warmth of desire to have young minds grow and 
character form. The stress of endeavor must be on 
doing good to the pupils, not on winning popularity 
or reputation for the teacher. If the current flows 
constantly outward it will always be fresh and freshen- 
ing ; if it is made to return self ward it will soon grow 
stagnant. 

There are men and women in classrooms and in 
charge of schools, who grudge the giving of even a 
little knowledge outside the text-book. They have 
knowledge, fresh and abundant ; they have experience, 
rich and illustrative; they have books which they enjoy 
themselves, — but they seem to think these things should 
be kept as the Egyptian priests kept their best religion, 
for the initiated, the inner circle only. To share with 
their pupils the helpful book, the richer experience, the 
deeper knowledge, they seem to think would vulgarize 
learning. 

But it must not be forgotten that if the teacher is 
to spend himself for his pupils fully and unreservedly, 
he must be worth spending. He must have that to give 
that shall justify the giving, — must have some kind 
of real riches. He who teaches should have abundant 
knowledge, sifted experience, fresh and honest feeling, 
and a tested character. Of these he may give and give, 
and he will have more for himself at each giving. The 



336 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

public must demand that its schools shall be put in 
charge of men and women who have both knowledge 
and culture, and have these interfused with character 
that is clean and fine — which may not be defined, but 
will be helpfully felt. 

The influence of books. — Next to the shaping force of 
personality, in parents, associates, and teacher, the most 
direct influence is exerted by what is read. The printed 
page is a silent, constant, powerful factor in the creation 
of the ideals after which our lives are modeled or by 
which they are wrecked. Surely the teacher, in giving 
to a child the power to interpret the symbols of the 
types, assumes a tremendous responsibility — a responsi- 
bility which can be met in no other way than by putting 
into the hands of pupils, from the very first, only the 
best of reading matter. 

Nothing must stand in the way — no supposed neces- 
sity for teaching "practical" arithmetic, or the facts 
of geography and history, or the subject-matter of any 
other branch, must be permitted to take precedence of 
the necessity of forming the taste for good reading and 
the habit of studying the characters delineated in biog- 
raphy, history, and literature. 

Piece by piece, with a little from this life story, with 
something from that poem, with a glowing line from 
some masterpiece of writing, the ideal is formed, and 
the thought and life of the individual assimilated to it. 

Children's reading. — Children, long before they can 
read, are as fond of stories as they are of sweetmeats, 
and one strong incentive to their progress in reading is 
that they may read stories for themselves. So valuable 
an instrument of teaching is the story now recognized 
to be, that special training in the art of story-making 



CHARACTER BUILDING 337 

and story-telling is given in German normal schools, 
and in some in this country. If it is worth while to 
give an answer to the few who question the propriety 
and safety of the story, it is sufficient to mention the 
Parables, the finest examples of the teaching story to 
be found in any literature. 

Although it is true that children read mainly just for 
the " story " — a matter in which they are closely imitated 
by many of a larger growth — still the busy mind is all 
the time unconsciously testing the persons and events 
of the story by an innate sense of fitness and fairness. 
While the boy or girl is looking at pictures, before the 
printed page can be interpreted, the question is often 
asked : Which are the good people, and which are the 
bad ones ? The fairy story, pure and simple, is not so 
well liked — not so absorbingly read, and referred to, 
and reread — as the narrative containing "real folks" 
and real human interests. 

The essentials of a good story. — This, then, is the 
main point, and any story placed in the hands of chil- 
dren should be built up about a core of healthy human 
interest. It should have ethical value, or, at least, 
should contain nothing distinctly unethical or suggestive 
of evil — nothing by which wrong is made attractive ; 
but, also, it is best not to have the moral too prominent 
or over-emphasized. The healthy-minded adult does 
not particularly relish the " novel with a purpose," in 
which the " haec fabula docet" is obtrusive; and the 
healthy-minded child is much like his elders in this 
respect. 

The point here is that, ordinarily, stories constitute a 
very large, if not the larger, share of the girls' and boys' 
general reading, and that stories intended for them should 

ROARK'S METH. — 22 



338 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

be full of the sound human element and attractive ethi- 
cal suggestiveness. They should be based on biography, 
history, adventure, and the common experiences of the 
home and school life ; and whatever form they take, or 
on whatever thing they are based, they should furnish 
material for the standards of moral judgment and moral 
conduct. 

Different books for boys and girls. — Those who have 
had occasion to examine children's literature must have 
been impressed by the fact that there are, relatively, 
many more stories, in books and magazines, for boys than 
for girls. It is not necessary here to discuss the causes 
of this condition of things, but that it has a very practi- 
cal bearing upon the subject in hand was shown by the 
results of an investigation made some time ago upon 
children's ideals. In answer to questions submitted to 
boys and girls alike, a large percentage of girls named 
some man or manly deed as the ideal of what they 
wanted to be or do. 

No one can doubt that it is better that for girls the 
womanly ideal should be held up, as for boys the manly 
one should be; and there is pressing need of literature, 
suited to children, that shall give to woman's work and 
womanly grace and dignity the charm and attractive- 
ness that rightly belong to them. 

Other reading than "stories." — But in guiding the 
pupils' reading, as it certainly is the business of the 
teacher to do, it must be seen to that much other matter 
than stories of even the best sorts is read and assimi- 
lated. A great deal can be introduced as " side read- 
ing " in the regular geography, history, and nature-study 
classes. Such reading, which is as useful in the college 
as in the grammar school, widens the horizon of the 



CHARACTER BUILDING 339 

student enormously, and sets many things in right per- 
spective for him. His interests are quickened and 
broadened, — and the mind full of right interests has 
no room, for wrong ones. Every healthy point of con- 
tact the teacher can help to make between a pupil's 
interests and his material or social environment dimin- 
ishes the probability of the pupil's making morbid and 
unsafe contact for himself. 

The moral value of school subjects. — All the reading 
which the pupils do becomes much more effective if it 
is the result, direct or indirect, of interest taken in the 
work done in the several branches of study. And the 
studies themselves have in them that which can nourish 
the moral ideal and strengthen the moral nature. This 
is especially true of what are called the " culture studies " 
— geography, history, civics, reading ; but it is true 
also of the thought studies, — arithmetic and formal 
grammar, — and it is true in a higher degree than in 
these of nature-study and science work of all kinds. 
The skill of a teacher reaches its highest level in the 
ability to have the pupils draw the spiritual essence out 
of all facts and things, and therewith to quicken their 
true ethical life. 

History. — For example, no teaching of history really 
deserves the name that does not show the upward trend 
of humanity, that does not show the great men and 
women of history to have been instruments for working 
out the beneficent purpose of a higher power, lifting 
the race nearer its ultimate goal. In addition to this, 
every teacher of the history of our own country should 
rejoice in the opportunity to teach the great lessons of 
democracy — and it may be so done that the very begin- 
ners will catch something of its true spirit. 



340 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

Nature-study. — So great is the value of nature-study 
in cultivating genuine religious feeling (and the ethical 
feelings need the religious to give them substance and 
strength), that it deserves frequent mention. No study 
of material things has any right to be called " nature- 
study " unless it is so directed as to cause to grow 
quietly and permanently into the consciousness of the 
pupil the concept of a beauty-loving, beauty-creating, 
and beneficent Author of laws by which all things 
are bound into a fundamental unity. 

Literature. — From literature, both by the close study 
of it in school and college and by the general reading 
to which such study should lead, are to be drawn some 
of the richest and most abundant materials to go into the 
formation of ideals of life and conduct. 

^Esthetic feeling is almost as closely and as helpfully 
associated with the ethical as is the religious ; and since 
all good literature is a transcript either of the beautiful 
in nature and art, or of the strong and true in humanity, 
it must therefore furnish much that counts in the culti- 
vation of the aesthetic and the humane. 

Function of imagination. — Literature has a most 
marked effect in the development of the imagination. 
It is this quality which makes the bad book so danger- 
ous — even more dangerous than the evil companion. 
The imagination is the most active faculty in the making 
of ideals, and if the elements entering into its combina- 
tions are such as to make the image of the western 
"tough" most pleasing to the boy reader, or of the 
empty-headed society woman to the girl, then the boy 
and girl set straightway about conforming themselves to 
these ideals. 

On the other hand, imagination, given the best ele- 



CHARACTER BUILDING 341 

ments with which to work, can and does construct 
attractive images of character and conduct that draw 
the boy and girl into righteous willing and doing. 
Parents and teachers cannot be too keenly observant 
of the reading matter that pupils come into possession 
of. Even a public library needs child-guarding care in 
its management. 

Character-value of expression. — In character build- 
ing, as in all other forms of growth, whether physical or 
psychic, there must be acquisition, assimilation of what 
is acquired, and expression of results. Expression not 
only is the sole test and evidence of the extent and kind 
of acquisition and assimilation, but it also intensifies and 
makes completer these two operations. 

But the power of expression goes even further than 
this ; if forms of expression are assumed and persisted 
in they react upon body and mind so as eventually to 
set t up within them corresponding states or activities 
which did not at first exist.- This is illustrated, with 
keen psychologic insight, in one of Mr. Grant Allen's 
stories, in which a man for a time successfully feigns a 
particular species of insanity, and ends by being really 
insane. Recent researches by Dr. Petrie upon the life 
of the ancient Egyptians have convinced him that their 
conscience was developed from external acts — that their 
character grew out of their conduct. But we hardly need 
go back to ancient Egypt to find illustrations ; every 
modern community is full of people whose conduct is 
largely the result of imitation and conservative adhe- 
rence to established usage, and whose conscience is 
mainly the product of habitual conduct. 

Reformative effects of expression. — Not only does 
expression thus react so as to form character ; its influ- 



342 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

ence is indispensable in reforming character. To quote 
from an earlier work i 1 "It is on the reaction of ex- 
pression upon character that keepers of reformatories 
and prisons largely rely to work improvement in their 
charges. If men are compelled to keep clean, to walk 
upright, to forego intoxicants, to eat plain food, and to 
do honest work, the characters of all but the most aban- 
doned will respond to the changed forms of outward 
behavior." 

Manumental training. — Upon such a basis as these 
facts afford, best rests the argument for manual training 

— better named manumental training. The testimony 
from every school where it has gained a trial is to the 
effect that it is not only of value because it removes, 
through the manual dexterity it gives, a handicap with 
which pupils had before been forced to enter the strain- 
ing race of life, but it is of far higher value in its effect 
upon the character of the pupils ; they are gainers from 
it in body, intellect, and morals. 

Through such training, the inherent activity of the 
young — the demand of every tissue and every faculty 
to be used — finds healthy and happy outlets. The re- 
action upon character is almost immediately perceptible ; 
the conscious possession of skill, of acquired precision 
of movement, of usefully productive and constructive 
ability, shows in the carriage, in increased intellectual 
aptitude, and in correcter manners and conduct. 

All this has been said by friends of manual training 

— some of whom were its enemies till they tested it — 
and said so often and so strenuously that it would seem 
that every community should prefer to spend less on 
reformatories (all of which provide manual training /) and 

1 Roark's "Psychology in Education," p. 231. 



CHARACTER BUILDING 343 

more in furnishing such training as a preventive of the 
increase of the ignorant and incompetent criminal class. 

Professor J. L. Tadd says : " We should develop a 
disposition disposed to energetic action or work, in re- 
sponse to stimulating thought — a disposition that hun- 
gers and thirsts for right action according to environ- 
ment. Too often mere head-learning creates a wish or 
desire for good without there being sufficient impulse in 
the organism to prompt the energetic action required to 
achieve it." 

Other forms of expression. — Any correct form of 
expression — or outflow of activity — has value in its 
reflex upon character. Sentiments and opinions to 
which young people give utterance in debate, in an 
essay, in a declamation, or even in a recitation, may 
or may not be felt and held strongly at the time they 
are uttered ; but the act of uttering them, especially 
if it be in debate, at once presses them more or less 
deeply into the character. For this reason the teacher 
needs to exercise care in the selection and assignment 
of themes for forensic exercises. It is easily among the 
possibilities that a young man may have his character 
permanently warped as the result of his advocacy of a 
doubtful proposition, or the earnest delivery of senti- 
ment and thought with which he, at heart, disagrees. 

But whatever the means employed to accomplish this 
one dominant purpose oi making character, through them 
all must flow the strong and vivifying current of the 
teacher's sympathetic influence. The teacher must con- 
stantly furnish to the pupil much, and direct him to more, 
whence he may gain concepts of truth, beauty, law, unity, 
to be assimilated into his ideal, to which ideal he, in 
turn, shall assimilate himself. Thus individual morality 



344 METHOD IN EDUCATION 

may be made sure. But it cannot be called sufficient 
until the individual projects his personal character into 
his civic life. The whole community or state must be 
bound by the ten commandments, even as the individual 
is. 

Ere the teacher can call his work complete he must 
have so wrought that his pupils shall act upon their 
environment with skill and aptitude, making a safer, 
better, happier world for those who are to come after 
them — making the environment more easily conform- 
able to the high ideals of those who shall take the torch 
from their drooping hands. 



INDEX 



Acquisition, 15, 18, 48. 
Acquisitional studies, 97. 
Activity, 12, 13. 
^Esthetic environment, 333. 
Algebra, in arithmetic, 260, 275. 
Analysis, in arithmetic, 263. 

in grammar, 251. 

in literature, 258, 313. 
Analytico-syntbetic learning, 16. 
Analytico- synthetic teaching, 30. 
Anatomy, 238. 
Answers, in arithmetic, 263. 
Arithmetic, 260. 

primary, 264. 
Arithmetical analysis, 263. 
Arithmetical apparatus, 266. 
Arithmetical signs, 269. 
Assignment of lesson, 41, 42, 45. 
Assimilation, 16, 18, 48. 

and character, 332. 
Assimilational studies, 99. 
Attention, 65. 

Biology, 246. 

Blackboard work, 69. 

Books and character, 330. 

" Borrowing," in arithmetic, 270. 

" Carrying," in arithmetic, 270. 
Character, 59. 

and assimilation, 332. 

and books, 336. 

and expression, 341. 

and habit, 324. 

and imagination, 340. 

feeling, and will, 331. 

mental, 327. 

physical, 325. 
Character-building, 322. 
Chemistry, 169. 
Citizenship, 217. 



Civics, 215. 

and history, 229. 
' apparatus for teaching, 228. 

outline of, 224. 
Class drills, 86. 
Clay modeling, 149. 
Clippings, use of, 186, 211. 
Collecting, 154. 
Common things, 137. 
Composition, 122. 

mechanics of, 293. 

oral, 285, 299. 

" sight work " in, 310. 

written, 286, 293, 317. 
Consciousness and the senses, 13. 
Conversation, 283. 
Correcting errors, 284, 288, 298, 

3°5> 306. 
Counting, 265, 268. 
Courtesy, 328. 
Criticism of language, 305, 306. 

by pupils, 307. 
Current events, 200. 
Current history, 209. 

Dates, in history, 21 1. 

Days, observing special, 197. 

Debates, in history, 213. 

Debating, 318. 

Deductive teaching, 32, 33. 

Diagraming, 249. 

Division, 272. 

Drill, illustrated, 85. 

Drills, 80. 

Drudgery beneficial, 37. 



Ear- vocabulary, 104. 
Education, a science, 9. 

form of, 8. 

function of public, 215, 222. 

physical, 23. 

subject-matter of, 7. 

345 



346 



METHOD IN EDUCATION 



Essay-writing, 296. 
Ethics, 214, 339. 
Examinations, 80, 92. 
Experimental science, 171. 
Explaining, by the teacher, 57. 
Explanations, pupils', 78. 
Expression, 18, 34,57* 

and character, 341. 

and history, 212. 

intellectual, 101. 

moral, 102. 

physical, 100. 

studies, 100. 
Eye- vocabulary, 104. 

Factoring, 276. 
Feelings, 14. 

and character, 33 1. 
Forensics, 318. 
Fractions, 273. 

Generalization, 17. 
Geographical apparatus, 181, 186. 
Geographical topic list, 187. 
Geography, 175. 

and literature, 109. 

and patriotism, 191, 231. 

applied, 109. 

divisions of, 18 1. 

in history, 190, 208. 
Geology, 152. 
Grammar, 122, 247. 

beginnings of, 290. 

outlined and applied, 256, 257. 
Greatest common divisor, 276. 
Gymnasium, 327. 

Habits, 20. 

and character, 324. 

intellectual, 330. 

physical, 326. 
History, 192. 

and character, 339. 

and civics, 229. 

and culture, 196, 199, 213. 

and ethics, 214. 

and expression, 212. 

and geography, 208. 

and patriotism, 232. 

local, 199. 

outlined, 201. 



History schemes, 205, 207. 
Honesty, 329. 
Hygiene, 239. 

Ideals, 332. 
Imagination, 100. 

and character, 340. 
Imitative activities, 19. 
Inductive teaching, 32. 
"Information" talks, 135. 
Intellectual expression, 101. 
Interest, 18, 37, 38, 65. 
Interpretation, in reading, 114. 

Judgment, 164. 

Knowledge, in teaching, 10. 

Language, in recitation, 300. 
Language-training, 282. 
Learning, 14, 16. 
Least common multiple, 276. 
Lesson, the, 40. 

assignment of, 41, 42, 45. 

preparation of, 47, 49. 

recitation of, 52. 
Lesson plans — 

on adhesion, 166. 

on civics, 216. 

on Columbus's voyage, 195. 

on expletives, 253. 

on grasshoppers, 153. 

on heat, 167. 

on impenetrability, 165. 

on infinitive mode, 254. 

on joints, 239. 

on leaves, 146. 

on literature, 314. 

on mixtures and combinations, 
169. 

on nouns, 291. 

on plants, 145. 

on soil, 151. 

on special da\ r , 197- 

on "Tale of two Cities," 315. 

on taxation, 219. 

on teeth, 241. 

on the sentence, 292. 

on watershed, 178. 
Letter-writing, 294. 
Lexicology, 133. 



INDEX 



347 



Literary laboratory, 312. 
Literary taste, 118. 
Literature, 312. 

and character, 340. 

and rhetoric, 311. 

as reading-matter, 119. 
Logomachy, 132. 

Management, defined, 9. 
Manual training, 25. 
Manumental training, 342. 
Map-making, in geography, 179, 184. 

in history, 208. 
Marking, 55. 
Marking papers, 298. 
Mechanics, of composition, 293, 299. 

of reading, 103. 
Memorizing, 27. 
Memory exercises, 317. 
Mental character, 327. 
Meteorology, 154. 
Method, denned, 9. 

foundations of, 12. 

principles of, 22. 
Mind's awakening, 14. 
Money problems, 279. 
Moral expression, 101. 
Moral value of studies, 339. 
Motor training, 26. 

Narration, 285, 298. 
Nature study, 140, 155. 

and character, 339. 

and literature, 158. 

helps to, 174. 
Note-making, 171. 
Number, concrete, 267. 
Number work, 264. 

Obedience, 221, 329. 
Object lessons, 98, 135, 164. 

in civics, 228. 
Object teaching, 28, 30. 
Objective teaching, 30. 
Oral composition, 285. 
Oral reading, 113. 
Oral spelling, 128. 
Oral work, 5.1. 
Outlining, 91. 

Parliamentary practice, 320. 
Parsing, 252. 



Parsing, in literature, 258. 
Patriotism, 230. 

and geography, 191, 231. 

and literature, 232. 
Personality of the teacher, 334. 
Phonics, 126. 
Physical character, 325. 
Physical education, 23, 25, 235. 
Physical expression, 100. 
Physical habits, 326. 
Physics, 164. 
Physiology, 234. 

outlined, 237, 243. 
Pictures, in geography, 186. 

in history, 193. 
Practical problems, 277. 
" Preliminary drill," 43. 
Programme for special day, 197. 

Question and answer, 60. 
Questioning, 56. 

Socratic, 72. 
Questions, the teacher's, 68, 71. 

Reading, 103. 

a center of correlation, 121. 

advanced, 1 16. 

dangers of, 117. 

oral, 113. 

primary, 104. 

purpose of, 113. 

silent, 115. 

supplementary, 119. 
Recitation, 52, 57, 59, 77. 

oral, 59. 

rules of, 65. 

written, 62. 
Repetition, 20, 38. 
Reproductton, 285. 
Retention, 15. 
Reviews, 80, 88. 
Rhetoric, 304. 

and literature, 31 1. 
Rules, in arithmetic, 263. 

School subjects, moral value of, 339. 

Sense learning, 16. 

Senses and consciousness, 13. 

Sentence method, 107. 

" Sight work," in composition, 310. 

Silent reading, 115. 



348 



METHOD IN EDUCATION 



Social factor in character, 333. 
Solutions, in arithmetic, 280. 
Spelling, no, 122, 124. 

oral, 128. 

written, 127, 130. 
Spiritual values, 1 71. 
Study, 48. 

Supplementary reading, 119. 
Synthesis, 31. 

Tables, in arithmetic, 269, 274. 
Teacher, personality of, 334. 

questions of, 68. 

reading of, 114. 

scholarship of, 41. 
Teaching, 7, 8, 10, 22, 28, 30, 36, 55. 

defined, 63. 

of names, 290. 

without the book, 67. 
Teaching acts, the, 63. 



Technical terms, 301. 

Themes, in composition, 297, 309. 

Thoroughness, 83. 

Topic list, in geography, 187. 

Topic method, 45, 47, 223. 

Topical recitation, 60. 

Use, principle of, 36. 

Value of studies, 96. 
Vocabulary, 301. 

Will and character, 331. 
Word-hunting, 302. 
Word method, in. 
Writing, 122. 
Written recitation, 62. 
Written spelling, 127, 130. 

Zoology, 152. 



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It is elementary in treatment, but every subject is 
presented in a most thorough, logical, and psychological 
manner. It makes a distinct departure from the methods 
heretofore in vogue in the treatment of Psychology and the 
application of its principles and processes to mind study 
and the philosophy of teaching. It is justly regarded as 
the most important contribution to pedagogical science and 
literature in recent years, and is the only work of its kind 
which brings the subject within the comprehension and 
practical application of teachers. 



Copies of Roark's Psychology in Education will be sent prepaid to any 
address, on receipt of the price, by the Publishers: 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(38) 



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